Bigger On the Inside
by Nocturne of Eclipse
Summary: The Ponds were gone, and the Doctor was alone. During a vacation trip for some well-deserved R&R, the Doctor finds an anomaly in space and time that strands him in a foreign world with technology oddly similar to his own, and no TARDIS. With only his wits and charm, he'll have to find his screwdriver, a companion, and the TARDIS, all the while saving the world along the way
1. Prologue

**_Bigger on the Inside_**

 _A Doctor Who and Pokemon Crossover_

by Nocturne-of-Eclipse

Disclaimer: Doctor Who and Pokemon are registered trademarks of the BBC, and Nintendo and the Pokemon Company, respectively.

Amy and Rory were gone, and he was alone. He tried not to think of it. Tried not to remember—New York City, the angels, Rory dying and dying again and Amy, dear, dear Amelia Pond, her eyes steady on the statue as she stood in front of her husband's grave. Will it take me to him, Doctor? she had asked him, there's room on the headstone for another name. And now they were gone, lost to time that was fractured and twisted so terribly he couldn't save them.

The Ponds were gone.

And the Doctor was alone.

He didn't take River with him. He couldn't—couldn't bear to look her in the eye, couldn't bear to speak to her, couldn't bear to be near her. He knew she would look at him with pain, with pity and grief for the loss of his best friends, her parents, and he didn't want it, nor did he need it. She would try to pretend everything was alright, make her subtle, wise jabs. Sometimes it was like River knew the Doctor better than he knew himself, and he supposed in some ways, in some meetings that was true; life of a time traveller, after all. Still, he didn't want it, and if the Doctor didn't want something, he did what he always did best: run. And run. And run and run and run like the coward he knew himself to be until his problems were far, far behind him and he could pretend like they never happened, could bury himself in some crisis or another, straighten his bowtie, and have an _adventure_.

That was what the Doctor needed: an adventure. Something grand, something _amazing_ , something _fantastic_. In fact, something like the alignment of the Velleity System, an occurrence that happened only once every millenia where the planets orbiting the star Vereles II, each of the twelve made entirely of glass mixed with different elements and thus each a different color, aligned in such a way that they reflected the star's light between each other and bathed the entire galaxy in a dancing rainbow aurora. To be fairly honest with himself, the Doctor wasn't quite sure why he hadn't been to the event before; it'd been one of the many dream destinations he wanted to travel to, and once upon a time he'd even been planning on taking Rose Tyler to see it, when it was only them. He'd never gotten the chance then. He supposed now was as good of a time as any.

"How does that sound, eh, old girl?" he said aloud as he threw switches, slapped on keys, pulled levers and danced his way around the TARDIS' console with all the grace of a drunken giraffe, "July twenty-second, twenty-four hundred AD in the Velleity System! I think it's a Thursday—you wouldn't think so, would you, these sorts of things tend to happen on Saturdays, but I guess they can't _all_ be—oh, come on, don't fuss! I've been wanting to see this for ages!" He rambled and ranted as he usually did, half-hearted with only the TARDIS listening to him. It was more fun when he had an audience that could talk back, though he knew it wasn't the TARDIS' fault she couldn't. Still, this was why he had companions. Sometimes he just needed the feedback.

With her shuddering groans, only a few moments later the TARDIS fell out of the Time Vortex and into space, and the Doctor eagerly eyed the galaxy on the TARDIS' view screen, seeking out each planet whose name came to him in the whispers of the stars and time and space, but abruptly his face fell and his brow furrowed in puzzlement before a note of disappointment left his throat. " _Nooooo_ ," he groaned, " _no_ , this isn't where we were going at _all_! You're always doing this, aren't you? There's nothing _here_ , just this—this big asteroid, what, are the _Daleks_ building a colony in it? Is that why you've brought me here?" The TARDIS hummed with the energy of the Vortex in reply, and the Doctor huffed and pouted. "I'm _telling_ you," he continued, "there's _nothing here_."

He spoke too soon.

Suddenly there was a crash and the whole TARDIS shifted and shook as though something had hit her; the console sparked angrily and the Doctor barely had the time to catch himself on the safety railing behind him as his balance was torn out from under him. "What was that?" he cried as the TARDIS began to settle and he could right himself as best he could. The TARDIS chimed in angrily, but the Doctor ignored her and pushed off the railing and back to the console, holding onto the edge tightly as he leaned in to peer at the view screen once more.

It was unlike anything he had seen before; space was rent, like huge claws had torn at the fabric of the universe and split it apart to reveal a gaping wound hundreds of thousands of meters high. In the back of his head, the Doctor vaguely registered the mauve alarms going off in the TARDIS, but he ignored them, rooted in spot as he gazed into its depths and saw—something _big_ , something huge and pink, and something darker, bluer, and there was fire, explosions, and the noise. Even from within the TARDIS the Doctor could hear fearsome, guttural roars that shook him and his vessel both, could see bright spheres that erupted into brighter, violent explosions that seemed to grow larger and larger.

Suddenly snapped from his stupor, the Doctor quickly turned back to his controls, a pressure in his hearts and his mind that made him want to turn tail and run, scurry back to the other side of the universe, maybe find a space cafe and stop for some tea instead. He began flipping levers and switches, reached to press his hand to the telepathic circuit as he pressed buttons with his free hand and one foot, but the TARDIS refused to enter the Time Vortex. Something was wrong, something was _very, very wrong_ , and this rend had to be the cause of it, had to be the reason why the TARDIS was starting to make wheezy groans and struggled grinding like she was sick, like she was _failing_. Out of the corner of his eye he could tell they were drifting closer and closer to the rend. It occurred to the Doctor that something on the other side, something big, had caught them in its gravity field, but that didn't explain why they couldn't jump into the Vortex, didn't explain anything. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

It wasn't long before they passed through the rend, and though the Doctor fought tooth and nail with the controls to escape, the TARDIS was picking up more and more speed. The creatures he saw in the view screen didn't seem to notice the presence of the blue box that was flying between them and continued their battle; the blue one would roar, and the TARDIS would shiver and shake, her instruments going wild, and the pink one would roar in return and slash at the air with its massive claws, energy blasting forth to leave more scars. Occasionally it seemed their energies would collide, and the shockwaves threw the TARDIS around like it was a toy with a tiny rag doll man inside. The Doctor's movements became frantic, sloppy, and he hurriedly tried to divert power to the TARDIS' shields; the great beasts' attacks collided once again, and unprepared, the Doctor lost his footing as the TARDIS spasmed. The ceiling grew further away, and as he went down, his head cracked painfully against the safety rail.

The TARDIS sped up, vibrating with the fire of a gravity field, and the last thing the Doctor heard before darkness overtook him was the vessel's psychic interface. _Stabilizers failing. Brace for impact in ten... nine... eight..._


	2. Slateport City

It was daylight, and it smelled like fish; that was the first thing the Doctor noticed as he began to come to his senses. The second was that he was not lying on the cold metal floor of the TARDIS' console room, nor could he hear the sound of her comforting chimes, her gentle knells that told him everything was going to be okay as long as he just kept traveling. Instead, he heard what he could only describe as a pendulus scraping, could only feel grainy, itchy sand beneath him. Something was wrong. His nose twitched. Yes, that was definitely fish.

With a sudden start, the Doctor's eyes shot open wide and he sat up rigid and entirely confused; stars exploded in front of his eyes at the dull ache at the back of his head, and his hand flew up to feel tender bruising. Suddenly it came back to him—the gaping wound in the fabric of space-time, the TARDIS unable to enter the Time Vortex, falling through, hitting his head—they must have crashed. But he wasn't in the TARDIS. His hands shot around to his face. Nose? Yes. Ears? Normal. Eyes? Two, the best number of eyes. Hair? Girly. Bow tie? He straightened it. Cool. Everything seemed the same, so he couldn't have regenerated. That was good. He wasn't sure if he was ready to give up his bow tie yet. But despite all of this, his mind continued to return to one specific question: where was the TARDIS? If he hadn't regenerated, he couldn't have fallen too far which would suggest, it seemed to him, that he'd maybe fallen out of her after the impact. She should be nearby.

With a grunt, the Doctor pushed himself fully to his feet, shaking the sand out of his trousers before pulling off his tweed jacket to shake that out, too. Looking to the left and right, it seemed as though he hadn't been wrong in his senses; he was on a beach, and stretching out to either side of him was sandy shoreline as far as he could see. Before him was the ocean, the surf scraping against the sand in its usual languid motions. Behind him, rocky cliffs, though he could catch a small glimpse of a lighthouse—civilization? Well, that was good at least, to land somewhere with people, no matter the kind. Especially since, he mused with a sinking feeling in his hearts, the TARDIS was nowhere to be found.

Something must have happened. They must have crashed, and something dangerous came by while the Doctor was unconscious—the HADS must have sent her off. That was fine. She would turn up; it wouldn't be too long. He'd just maybe find the people and ask around to see if anything had fallen from the sky in the passed few hours. Briefly a memory resurfaced—chasing the mauve alert through the Time Vortex with Rose, landing in World War II London, meeting Jack; it seemed like no matter who he was traveling with, there could never be a happy ending.

"Now, that's no way to think," he told himself firmly, "There _was_ a happy ending. Rose is dating you in another universe right now. That's not weird at all. Stop whining." But through it her words came back to him— _scan for alien tech. I was expecting something a little bit more... Spock_. "Yes, dear," he muttered to himself, "I bet _he_ never scans for alien tech... I wonder how they're...? Wait, what?" Frantically patting his pockets, it quickly became clear that the TARDIS wasn't the only one missing, and the Doctor was suddenly excruciatingly aware of his dire, dire lack of sonic.

Uttering a groan with all the upset of a teenager forced to stay in on a Friday night, the Doctor dropped back to his knees on the sand and frantically sifted through it, eyes searching for any glint of metal or odd indentations that could be his most precious of tools, but after a few minutes it quickly became clear that everything of import he had with him had suddenly been ripped from his person and—he was stranded. Stranded. On a beach. And he didn't know where he was.

This was a bit of a pickle.

"Right," he said, "right, so. No TARDIS. No sonic. That's not a problem. I can fix this. I'll just... _Well_... I'm not quite sure. The TARDIS will show up eventually, I suppose, and I can get another sonic then but—well, now I must just seem _silly_ talking to myself, she's not even here to listen..." With a heavy sigh, he placed one arm akimbo on his hip and dragged the other hand tiredly across his face. "This is fine. Everything is fine. I'll just see if the locals can help, I suppose."

He turned his gaze back to the rocky bluffs, eyeing them carefully. He could climb that. Could he? He stretched his limbs awkwardly—even after all this time, they were a little longer than he was used to, and it was heard to move with motor finesse—and considered the bluff's height. Yes. He could climb that. Nothing seemed to be hurting too much. Taking one last minute to shake himself out, the Doctor approached the rocky cliff side and grabbed onto it, beginning the grueling process of climbing. He supposed, as he made his way steadily up, that this was sort of an adventure. Just kind of a frustrating one. It didn't take him too long to reach the top of the bluff, definitely less than an hour, and when he finally threw himself onto grassy earth he heaved another great sigh, this one of relief, as he sweated and took a minute to catch his breath.

He had been right about the lighthouse—it wasn't too far off along the bluffs, standing proudly near a bustling port town, and the Doctor was delighted as he stood to see humans going about their daily business; briefly it struck him as odd that he was unaware of the town's name, which planet or continent it was settled upon, but considering the kind of day he had thus far, he tried not to give it too much thought. Just the idea of finding somewhere to sit and eat, maybe have some tea, it reminded him that things could most definitely be worse, and that, quite frankly, he was astounded nothing was yet trying to murder him horribly.

Pressing on across the rolling green hills and towards the port town, he found a commonly-trodden path not too far from the lighthouse. The walk was a lot less stressful than the climb, though the Doctor soon realized that wherever he was, it was only going to get hotter; even though it seemed early into the day, he could already feel the underarms of his shirt beginning to grow damp. That would be a problem. He didn't have a change of clothes or a place to do laundry. The TARDIS couldn't turn up soon enough—especially since the path ended not too far passed the lighthouse. He was now separated from the town by another sea, this one made not of water, but entirely of extremely tall grass. So, TARDIS missing, sonic missing, no companions, and to top it all off, grass stains. The day just couldn't get any better.

He had made it approximately three steps into the grass when all of a sudden he felt something large impact his side, and with a strangled yelp, down the Doctor went, landing unceremoniously in the dirt face-first. "Oh, of course," he grumbled, "of course, it's going to be one of those days, isn't it?" Spitting grass and dirt out of his mouth—regular grass and regular dirt, tasted like classic Earth, odd—he sat back up to see just what had knocked him over when he came face-to-face with a creature he had never seen before.

It stood on four paws, its green fur streaked with bits of yellow and a large crest on its head. It was something the Doctor didn't recognize, something new, and it was growling menacingly at him. It occurred to the doctor that he'd stumbled across its territory, and so slowly rising back to his feet, he prepared himself to run. "Hey, there," he said gently as he began to back away, "it's okay. I didn't mean to disturb you. I'll just—go, it's quite aright—"

He was well enough away from the creature, and though it was still snarling, growling, looking ready to lunge, the Doctor was certain that running was an incredibly viable option in this situation; and so, placing one foot firmly behind him, the Doctor slowly began to skirt back towards the edges of the grass, to run until the creature gave up the hunt, and that was when he heard the most peculiar of noises.

In the moments before it hit him, the Doctor could have sworn what had happened was a random happenstance of nature to top off an already bad start to his day, that a freak lighting bolt had shot down from the heavens to zap him, but he could see the creature howling out of the corner of his eye, head thrown back as sparks of static danced on its coat, and a split second late he was on the ground spamming and screaming as pain wracked his body. It was over moments later—was it? He wasn't sure, he was tingly and twitchy and something smelled burnt—and the creature approached, sticking its green nose in his face and neck to sniff him as he continued to twitch and spasm.

So this was it, he thought, this was how it was going to happen to him; this was how he was going to die. He always thought it would be a little more exciting—after that whole deal with the Master and Rassilon at Christmas all those years ago, he'd sort of been expecting this time to maybe explode taking down a Dalek warship or something—he searched himself, searched his soul for any remnants of regeneration energy, and maybe with all that River had given him—

" _Hey_!"

Suddenly came a voice, and the creature's head snapped up as it began to growl again. " _Look out!_ Don't worry, I'll help you!" The Doctor, through the spasms and shaking, managed to shift and push himself vaguely to his side, or at least well enough to try and find the source of the voice—there was a girl wearing red, her hair up in a bright green bandana and at her waist were several small, odd-looking spheres, some sort of technology the Doctor had never seen before. She took one and pressed a button—the sphere grew in size. She threw it, and it opened, releasing some sort of energy beam that shot to the ground to materialize—another creature?

It was much smaller than the wolf-like being that had apparently shocked him, and its face looked—well, grumpy was the only word the Doctor could think of. It was green just like the first creature, but duller, and it looked kind of like a mushroom. "Alright, Shroomy," the girl said, "Stun Spore!" The creature (Shroomy?) nodded its head (body?) and shook itself. Tiny yellow particles that looked like pollen arose from its coat and floated through the air, landing on the first creature. It tried to move through the cloud of pollen towards Shroomy, but its body began to shiver, and its movements slowed until it was stopped in place, tremoring and unable to continue.

"Now!" the girl continued, "use Headbutt!" Shroomy gave some tiny, squeaky cries of its own and charged at the first creature, lowering its head before throwing itself at the other one to ram into it. The first creature cried out and fell to the ground, still unable to move, and the girl mused that to her advantage. She reached behind her and pulled from her bag another of the small spheres. Just like the first, she enlarged it, and the Doctor could only wonder what sort of creature she was going to let out next. She surprised him by instead throwing it with all of her might at the collapsed thing on the ground; as it hit it, the sphere opened just like the first, and the beam of light shot forth to hit the creature square on the nose. As the energy touched it, the creature became engulfed in a bright red light until it, tethered to the energy beam, was sucked into the ball. It shut tightly mid-air and then fell to the ground, wiggling back and forth as a red light flashed on the front. After three repetitions a quiet ding came from the sphere, and the girl let out a squeal of delight.

"I did it, I caught it!" she cheered, jumping into the air. "Oh, this is awesome, Dad's going to be so proud to see how well the pokedex is coming along! Shroomy, you did such a good job!"

"Mi mi!" Shroomy replied, jumping along with the girl. It looked much happier now; it waddled over to her on its stubby little legs and began to rub up against her ankle, much, the Doctor thought, like a cat. It was about then he realized he was no longer spasming or twitching, that motor function had returned to him, and abruptly, he sat upright. His movement suddenly sparked the girl's memory, and she and her toadstool stopped in their celebrations to rush over to the Doctor's side.

"Hey," she said, "Are you alright? It looked like it got you pretty good."

"I'm fine," the Doctor dismissed, "I'm fine—I just—what was that?" The girl didn't seem entirely convinced, but seemed at least minorly satisfied with his answer. She offered him an amused smile and a hand to help him up, which the Doctor accepted and pulled himself to his feet, beginning to brush the dirt off his trousers and jacket.

"You must be new to the region," the girl said, "that was an electrike. Here, let me..." She fished in her pocket for a second before pulling out a sleek, red square with a split down its face. Taking either side in her hands, she slid the pieces outwards to reveal a touch screen, which lit on its own, and she pressed a few buttons and scrolled through a list of names before pressed the one that read electrike. A picture of the Pokemon appeared along with a short description, and she held it out for him to read.

 _It generates electricity using friction from the atmosphere. In seasons with especially arid air, its entire body blazes with violent showers of sparks._

Well, that answered his questions. A little. Not really. "Huh," he said aloud, "you know, I've seen lots of animals that build up static as a defense mechanism, but never one that could shoot it at someone. That seems a little dangerous, doesn't it? Well, lucky for me you came along, eh?" He stood back and smiled at the girl, and she smiled brightly back. She seemed young, in terms of human years, maybe about the same age Amelia was when he first met her. With dangerous things like that electrike wandering about, he could only imagine she lived in the town ahead of them.

"Shroomy and I were happy to help," she said, "and we got a new friend out of it, too!"

"Are we friends?" The Doctor asked, brows raising. That was an interesting way for it to work; it would make for a good story, the next time he had a TARDIS passenger—the planet where you'd become someone's friend if they saved you from an angry green wolf. But the girl suddenly was looking awkward.

"Oh, I meant—well, I caught the electrike, and I meant—I mean, we can be friends! But I meant the electrike." She paused. The Doctor paused. They were both confused in one way or another, and they stared at each other awkwardly. So that's not how friendship happened on this planet. This entire day was throwing him for a loop. "I'm Sapphire," she suddenly blurted into the silence, "if we're going to be friends, we need to know each other, right? I'm Sapphire." Shroomy piped up with its tiny squeaks. "Oh, and this is Shroomy. He's the second member of my team."

"Its nice to meet you, Sapphire," the Doctor replied, "I'm the Doctor! Just the Doctor. It's nice to meet you as well, Shroomy." He extended his hand, and Sapphire took it for them to shake just as awkwardly as they introduced themselves.

"So...," she said, "are you heading into town, too?"

"Yes," the Doctor replied, "yes, you see, I'm in a bit of a jam." He waved one hand back towards the beach. "I was traveling and my—my ship must have crashed, but when I came to it wasn't there..."

"Oh, you're a sailor, then!" Sapphire decided, "where's your crew?" The Doctor decided it was better not to correct her.

"Er–well, they're gone," he said, "the last place we visited, well, they jumped ship so to speak. It's just me." Just him. He could feel the loneliness welling back up inside of him. "Yes. Just me, now."

"Well, what about your pokemon?" Sapphire persisted, "can't you have them help you look?"

"Pokemon?" The Doctor cocked his head, frowning. What was a Pokemon? The girl was eying him strangely now, and the Doctor fervently began trying to piece things out. His eyes fell to Shroomy, and his mind fell back to the electrike. Were those what she was talking about? They must have been, he couldn't think of anything else.

"Right," he suddenly heard himself saying, "right, Pokemon! No, I'm afraid I don't have any at all. Like I said, just me. Just the Doctor. Off to see the sights by myself, but that's alright, eh? Sometimes you need to travel by yourself! Get immersed in the culture, not have anyone running about making a mess! But no. Just me. No Pokemon." The girl looked even more confused than before.

"But... You're an adult," she said, "I haven't—I've never met an adult without...?" The Doctor offered her his most harmless, charming smile. Hesitantly, she returned it. "Well, I guess that means I'll have to be your bodyguard then. It wouldn't be good if you ran into another angry electrike without a way to protect yourself. I'm heading into town, too, so I won't be going out of my way, or anything."

"Yes, thank you! Do you know where the best place for me to ask around for help with me ship would be?" Sapphire thought on that for a long moment, rubbing her chin as she considered, and then put her red device away to pull out another yellow device, opening it in much the same way to bring up what appeared to be a map. After a moment of deliberation, she shut that and put it away, as well.

"There's a shipyard," she told him, "they might be able to help. Other than that... Maybe the Pokemon Center? I'll need to stop by there, anyways, Chickadee needs healing."

"That sounds like a good idea to me," the Doctor agreed, "lead on, then, Sapphire!" And that was that; Sapphire reached down to scoop up Shroomy and tucked him close to her chest, and began taking bold steps through the grass and towards the town. The Doctor trailed along close behind her.

They made small talk as they walked. Sapphire explained to him that she was from a town not too far from where they were called Littleroot, and that her father was some sort of professor. She was on her Pokemon journey, she told him, that this was the first time she had been so far from home without her father with her. She went on and on about something called the Pokemon League, that she needed eight badges to enter and she already had two, one from Rustboro and one from Dewford. She talked about everything as though the Doctor should have understood what it all meant, but quite frankly, he was lost.

"So wait," he said as they approached the town's outskirts, "gyms, like somewhere you go to work out?"

Sapphire simply laughed. "No, no, not that kind of gym! A pokemon gym! Don't they have those in your region?" It wasn't really a lie when the Doctor said no to that, after all, he wasn't from a region. Quite frankly, he wasn't even from a country. But he was still sorting through his head trying to figure out the year, because this technology... Humans never had this technology, did they? "You must be from Fiore, then," she laughed, "I hear Pokemon battling is illegal over there. Actually, I think pokeballs are illegal, too. That would make sense."

"Yes," the Doctor said, "it would, wouldn't it? Say, Sapphire, can I see...?"

"Electrike?" She finished for him, and the Doctor nodded. She took the sphere—pokeball?—off her belt and handed it to him. Thanking her, the Doctor took his time to examine it. It was small again, like the others she had. He turned it this way and that, trying to understand, and must have bumped something as he was doing it, because the pokeball suddenly expanded and surprised, he nearly dropped it. Sapphire only laughed at his clumsiness. "Yep, you're definitely a Fiore boy."

"Yes," the Doctor agreed, distracted, "yes, it's all very strange, we—we don't have these in Fiore, at all." Now that the pokeball was expanded, the top reddish bit had become translucent, and it had darkened to a grey-ish sort of color. He could see the electrike inside laying in what appeared to be the nest the Doctor had trodden through, all in a miniscule scale, and it was astounding. It was... "Bigger on the inside," he mused aloud, then looked up at Sapphire.

This was Time Lord technology. Was she...? Was this planet...? No. It couldn't be. Could it? He stared hard at her. After a moment, he silently handed the pokeball back, and Sapphire shrunk it and put it back on her belt. This wasn't Gallifrey; it couldn't be, not the original, anyways. It looked wrong, felt wrong, smelt wrong, tasted wrong. It tasted like Earth, but not like any Earth he had ever visited.

The town was still waking up by the time he and Sapphire arrived. Some coffee shops were open with a few patrons sitting outside, treating their own creatures (Pokemon, the Doctor reminded himself) to breakfast or having coffee or tea and other breakfast essentials. There was one particularly nice one that sold, apparently, over a hundred kinds of tea, that he took mental note of to return to when he had a chance. He'd have to get some money first. It suddenly occurred to him how much more difficult that was going to be without the sonic.

Passing by early risers taking their Pokemon on walks, Sapphire lead the Doctor into the center of town, where there was a large cobblestone square that looked to be the popular site for some certain kind of sport. Two buildings there stood out against the rest: one large one with a bright red roof, and one slightly smaller with a blue roof. Sapphire led him into the red-roofed building—Pokemon Center, the Doctor read at the sliding glass doors. The inside was much cooler than the outside had been even for so early in the morning, and he tugged gently at his collar to let the air in before removing his jacket completely and carrying it over his shoulder. Yes, this was much nicer.

Sapphire headed straight for the counter at the far end of the lobby, where a woman dressed in a pink outfit stood smiling warmly at them. The Doctor continued to follow along behind her, taking note of a sitting area with a bar lined with coffee and tea dispensers, as well as a variety of strange fruit and cereal brands, as well as a series of computers and video phones towards the other wall. "Welcome to Slateport Pokemon Center," the woman at the counter greeted them, "can I help you?"

"Yes, ma'am," Sapphire said, "can you heal my Pokemon, please?" She took the six pokeballs from her belt and held them out across the counter.

"Of course," the woman agreed, and took them from her. The Doctor was about to go sit, but instead stood frozen as he watched the woman turn to the side and place the pokeballs into indentations on a machine before typing a few things into the computer. The machine lit up and played a short little jingle, and not even ten seconds later, she was handing them back. "There you go. How about you, sir? Do you need your Pokemon healed?"

It took the Doctor a minute to realize she was speaking to him, but when he did, he smiled and shook his head. "Oh, no," he replied, "not me, thanks. No Pokemon to speak of, I'm from Fiore! We don't keep Pokemon there, nope. No Pokemon whatsoever."

"Alright, then," the woman said, "in that case, is there anything else I can do for either of you?"

"Actually, there is,"said the Doctor, "has anyone come by talking about a crashed ship? Maybe seen anything falling from the sky last night, something... blue?"

"No," she replied slowly as she considered it, "I was in all night last night, and you're the first ones I've had in today. If you're in later and I hear anything, I'll make sure to let you know, though."

"Thanks anyways," the Doctor told her, "we'll make sure to see you later, Dr...?"

"Nurse Joy," the woman introduced herself, "you really are foreign, aren't you?" She and Sapphire laughed, and the Doctor laughed along with them, though not entirely sure why this was so funny; was she some sort of celebrity or something? "We should have some rooms available this evening if you two need somewhere to stay."They thanked her again and left.

It wasn't quite time for the shipyard to be open yet, and so in the meantime Sapphire suggested the Doctor accompany her as she ran some errands. The Doctor, although stress was biting at the back of his mind, agreed, and walked alongside her as she led him down the streets to an open-air market, where she began to leisurely peruse the stalls, pausing to buy what looked like berries, medicine, and other things she must have been low on. Her money was peculiar, all coins with a symbol that the Doctor was relatively certain humans had never used in their history; it looked like a P with ears and two strikes across its spine.

"Say, Sapphire," he said as they moved between a couple stalls, "what kind of currency is this? What's the best way to get it?" He was sure he wouldn't expressly need to worry; as soon as he had the TARDIS and got a new screwdriver, he could hit any ATM in town, but frankly he didn't want to be stuck until dinner without anything to eat, and that tea shop had looked incredible.

"Oh, it's the standard currency," Sapphire replied, waving one of the coins at him as she put her change in her coin purse, "Hoenn joined the United Pokemon Federation maybe five years ago, so we switched over then. I guess most people get it working jobs, but I get mine from pokemon battles."

"Battles like when you and Shroomy fought that electrike," the Doctor mused, "and you said Hoenn? This is Hoenn?"Sapphire laughed.

"Of course it is," she said, "where did you think you were?"Odd. Odd and odder, entirely strange. The Doctor had never heard of any human territory called Hoenn, and dread began to sink into the pit of his stomach. He swallowed hard.

"Sapphire," he ventured slowly, "what year is it?"Not for the first time that day, she gave him an odd look, and he could see the gears turning in her head, could see her piecing out that something was amiss about him, that something wasn't normal.

"You must have hit your head pretty hard when you crashed," she finally decided, "Doctor, it's 2016."

Oh. Oh. Well, then. That was a full three-hundred eighty-four years before he'd been in the Velleity system. So then that rend in space, it had to have been a rend in time, as well and... the reality of the situation slowly began to dawn on him. Humans. In 2016. On a planet that tasted and smelled like Earth, but with regions that the Doctor had never heard of, technologies humans shouldn't have been capable of, creatures that could shoot electricity. It was an alternate reality. An alternate Earth.

The TARDIS. Even if he found her, she wouldn't be of any help. Her energy would be gone. She'd be, well, just a box. Blue and pretty and a less-than-mobile home he could live out of, but that was it. Just an empty box. It dawned on the Doctor that he'd never felt more lonely in his life until that very instant. And it was all his own fault, too. If Gallifrey was still around—if he hadn't slaughtered them, slaughtered the Time Lords, he wouldn't be in this situation. He'd just be able to pop back home. He remained quiet for the rest of the shopping trip, eyes glued to his shoes and shoulders sagging. Sapphire let him be.

Still, the Doctor supposed he wasn't entirely without hope. He just had to find the TARDIS first, see if it was like the last time he'd gotten stuck with Rose and Mickey, maybe she would be fighting to hold on and he could breathe his life into her just enough that they could make it back home and carry on as they usually did, and so he made no protest as they headed to the shipyard.

Unfortunately, as they asked around, everyone working at the shipyard seemed to have the same general information as Nurse Joy had at the Pokemon Center; no one had seen his ship or anything fall from the sky (and quite frankly looked confused at the latter part of the question) but the manager said they'd send out some people to search and call if they found anything. Sapphire, the only one of them with a phone number, gave them hers. They thanked them, too, and then Sapphire and the Doctor headed back out into town.

"Well," the Doctor said, "hopefully she'll turn up. I suppose I'll have to make the best of it while I wait!" He clapped his hands together and offered Sapphire a smile. "I don't suppose you' demand me tagging along with you wherever you go next? New world, after all, be lovely to see it!" It was hard to keep in good spirits, in fact, the Doctor was not in good spirits at all, but there was nothing he could really do, not until he could find the TARDIS or even the sonic, provided it was still working. Sapphire seemed to pick up on how hard the Doctor was trying to stay positive, and smiled patiently in return.

"I was going to hang around and see if I could meet up with a friend," she told him, "I haven't seen him since we last ran into each other in Rustboro. You're welcome to wait with me, if you want." The Doctor agreed, and they returned to the center of town where Sapphire got them a couple pastries and they sat down on the curb to eat; it tasted a little strange to what the Doctor had ever experienced from human food, but he suppose that ought not to be so terribly surprising. Sapphire explained to him that the filling was made from a sort of berry called a chilan berry. It was spicy and sweet at the same time with an odd aroma, and Sapphire explained that she got it specifically because it was only grown in the Hoenn region. Finding it pleasing to his palette, the Doctor idly mused he would have to take some with him to keep in the TARDIS' garden.

They sat outside of the better part of the morning, finishing off their pastries, and Sapphire asked the Doctor a number of questions he found himself unable to answer, and therefore, lying through his teeth about, mostly concerning the Fiore region. Eventually Sapphire seemed to grow bored with waiting and took to the square, where a number of children and adults alike were gathering and chattering with each other, showing off pokeballs and badges. The Doctor continued to wait on the curb, eying them sharply. He had been watching two kids exchanging pokeballs (and Pokemon too?) when suddenly people started cheering, and he glanced over to see Sapphire and another trainer standing at opposite sides of the square. Quickly, the center was vacated, and the other trainers stood around them in a ring. Curious, the Doctor rose to join them.

For a moment someone shouted about rules—standard League one-on-one rules, they called, and asked Sapphire and the other trainer to select their Pokemon. As though he were watching a western, the Doctor saw their hands fly to their belts, and each threw a pokeball into the center of the field. The other trainer had sent out a large, humanoid-looking Pokemon with blue skin and three ridges along its head. Its arms were huge; it could probably crack an entire planet in half, the Doctor thought. Sapphire, on the other hand, released what looked to be a monstrous orange chicken with claws on the ends of its arm-like wings. Everything was quiet for a long moment. Then it happened.

"Machoke!" The other trainer ordered, "Cross Chop!" The big blue Machoke bellowed and took large steps forward, flinging one arm around at the tiny chicken. Sapphire's eyes flashed dangerously.

"Chickadee, Quick Attack!" With blinding speed, Chickadee shot forward, leaping up onto Machoke's arm and slapping it comically in the face before it could even move another step. "Now, Peck!" Machoke swiped angrily at Chickadee, but she jumped again and flipped in the air before face-planting into Machoke's head beak-first. Machoke crumpled like a rag doll, and the Doctor winced as he watched it go down. The trainer who was playing referee began to count down, but Machoke wasn't moving, and soon enough, it was announced that May had won the battle. After the other trainer recalled his Pokemon, they shook hands, and he handed her a few coins.

So that was how it worked. The Doctor watched as the other trainers scrambled to challenge each other or to challenge Sapphire, but the Doctor continued to eye her Chickadee that struck her poses and tried so hard to seem cool. Sapphire did say, after all, that Pokemon battles were probably one of the best ways to make some quick money. If he couldn't find the sonic, then perhaps... He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Perhaps he would need to get a Pokemon of his own. After all, Sapphire was a child, and the Doctor couldn't possibly rely on her to provide for him while he was there; it wouldn't be fair. But still, the prospect of having his own Pokemon to battle with and care for—well, it wasn't the same as having a companion. He wasn't sure.

Sapphire continued to battle other trainers and continued to win, amounting a fair amount of cash until one trainer in particular approached her. "Sapphire," he said, and she turned to look at him before greeting him with a wide-split grin.

"Ruby!" She cried, "you made it, finally!" Ruby didn't seem much older than Sapphire, though he was still taller than her by a few inches. He, too, was dressed in red, save for the green-banded knit cap that was pulled low over his eyebrows and the green backpack he was toting around. On his shoulder was a small rabbit-looking thing with blue ears and blue spots on its cheeks.

"I've been here since this morning," he said, "but I couldn't find you so I went north to train for a while."

"Aw, and did you catch this little guy out there?" Sapphire asked, pointing to the rabbit. Ruby smiled.

"Yep!" He said, "this is Mimi! If anyone could win a Cute Contest, it's going to be her. So, what have you been up to?" And Sapphire began to fill him in—they talked for a while, and the Doctor listened in as she recounted her adventure with stories that Ruby seemed to understand but the Doctor only managed to follow the smallest bit. Something about a team and water and a gym leader and someone named 'Steve.' Now there was a name. Steven. Steeeevvveeennn. Yeah, that would be a good name for a companion. But Steve or no Steven, apparently Sapphire was talking about him now, because Ruby looked over and eyed him with an odd look.

"I didn't realize Fiore's borders were back open," Ruby mused before dismissing it and turning the full of his attention back to Sapphire. "I would have invited you to watch me compete in a contest, but they're only giving passes out in Verdanturf. I'm going to rest everyone up and set out this afternoon. I have to go to the museum first to deliver a package, though, do you want to come?" He patted his bag and jerked one thumb in the direction of the lighthouse.

"Ooh, you know, I'd love to go to the museum again," Sapphire said, "I haven't been in a while, I hear they have an exhibit on unmanned submarines. Do you want to come with us, Doctor?"

"Sure!" The Doctor agreed, ignoring the pained look that crossed Ruby's face, "why not? Love a museum, always a good way to spend the day! Lots to learn about here, isn't there? After all, Fiore and Hoenn are so different!" He took to his feet and took his jacket from the sidewalk. "Lead the way, then! Still getting used to town, don't want to get lost. I got lost once in the heart of the Congo—bad time, no bananas, and quite frankly I don't think it was a good job choice for Henry, but we made it in the end!" Both of the kids looked confused by his babblings, but they said merely exchanged looks, shrugged, and said nothing.

Ruby and Sapphire continued to chat as they walked side-by-side, and the Doctor followed leisurely behind them. The museum was back at the far side of town, near the bluffs where Sapphire had found him. As they entered they were stopped at the front desk to pay for tickets, and unwilling to allow Sapphire to continue paying his way for the day, the Doctor reached into his jacket to fish for the psychic paper—and heaved an internal sigh of relief as his fingers met it. Whipping it out, he flashed it at the ticket clerk, who apologized for holding them up and let them in. Even Ruby looked impressed.

"How did you do that?" He asked, and the Doctor smiled.

"Oh, it's nothing," he said, then leaned in to whisper to the kids, "my paper, it's slightly psychic. When I used it, I can be anybody! Quite a handy little gadget, if I say so myself, gets you into places without people asking questions—and that's usually the hardest thing to get passed, the questions." He missed the now mildly concerned expressions the children wore, instead turning his attention to the exhibits. Most of them seemed to do with the ocean, about water density and coral, there were a few fossils for him to peruse of more things that weren't normal animals—so this must have been an incredibly strong deviation from the normal timeline, going back billions of years, if the dates were anything to go by...

He continued to poke around to the various exhibits as Sapphire and Ruby set off to do their own thing, heading somewhere upstairs, presumably for Ruby to deliver whatever it was he had. The Doctor had spent maybe about five or ten minutes reading the exhibits, learning the names of some local Pokemon, when the doors opened, and someone said something about a pre-booked group visit and, well, when the Doctor turned around, a bunch of young adults dressed like pirates were shuffling in together.

His first reaction was that they must have been big marine biology enthusiasts, save the whales (or in this case, wailmer, he thought as he peered at a visual representation of a wailmer's life cycle) and all of that. But if there was anything the Doctor was good at, it was noticing when things seemed off, and these people... They seemed off. There was something about the way they huddled together in groups whispering, pretending to look at exhibits and plaques while instead gazing around with shifty eyes. Something was up—and it didn't take the Doctor long to find out.

Five minutes after they had all come in and settled, there was suddenly movement, action, pokemon. A bunch of small black dog Pokemon and a few Pokemon that the Doctor recognized from his brief look around as wingull, were released into the museum, each one commanded by a different pirate, and the Doctor himself was suddenly surrounded by them.

"Oh!" He said, looking idly around at the snarls and growls of the Pokemon and the sneering faces of the pirates, "well, this was unexpected. Hello! I'm the Doctor. Point of interest, you know, I've met some pirates, before! You all seem a fair bit angrier, though, the ones I met were just trying to keep themselves safe from a siren—well, I say siren, but it turned out she was just a nurse. Do you really need to be setting your Pokemon on me?" They didn't reply; one of the dogs growled loudly. "Right. Of course. I don't suppose you realize you're endangering the exhibits?"

Still, none of them replied. They remained this way for a while, keeping the museum under a tight lockdown; the Doctor saw no one able to leave, and even the receptionists were being held at threat of violence. It didn't remain stagnant for much longer, though. Eventually, the doors opened and in came another round of people dressed at pirates, each filing in neatly and stopping in a line to either side of the reception and help desks before turning inwards and firing off neatly practiced salutes. The doors opened and one final person came in: a tall man with a dark brown beard, small mustache, and sideburns, a bandanna much like the others' tied around his head, and wearing a simple pair of slacks that matched his dark blue button-down (which, the Doctor mused, he really ought to button all the way up, or at least wear an undershirt with it.) He looked, like the rest of them, positively piratey.

As he entered, he gazed silently around at the other pirates before his eyes flickered to the receptionists, and then finally came to a rest on the Doctor, briefly moving up and down as though to size him up. Apparently satisfied with whatever conclusion he reached, he turned his attention back to the other pirates.

"Move them all upstairs," he said in a deep, growling voice, "don't hurt any of them. We get what we need, we get out. Am I clear?" The other pirates all replied with a hearty "yes, sir" in unison, and vaguely the Doctor mused this man must have been their captain, and while it seemed to be all kinds of mixed signals to take over a museum by force with a bunch of tiny angry animals and then declare they weren't going to hurt anyone, the Doctor supposed he could let the power display slide. That, and he was pretty sure one of those dogs was about to latch onto his leg, and he really wasn't in the mood to pick a fight, at the moment, so he went without complaint as the underlings herded he and the receptionists upstairs.

Ruby and Sapphire where in much the same position as the Doctor was, and so was the man they were delivering the parts to; the three of them were huddled in the corner, surrounded by a few angry-looking humanoid-ish Pokemon with lily pads on their heads. Neither Sapphire nor Ruby had their pokeballs on their belts—or, in fact, their belts. A pirate was standing a short ways away from them with their pokeball belts in her arms. Another pirate was working diligently at a computer at the far side of the room, and with what he could make out, the Doctor could only assume he was trying, and failing, to hack into it.

"Captain Stern," the Pirate Captain greeted the man next to Ruby and Sapphire, "it's good to finally meet you in person. I hope there are no hard feelings, but I'll be taking those Devon goods from you."

"Who are you people?" The man, Captain Stern, demanded, "what kind of sane person takes a museum hostage?!"

"We're Team Aqua," the Pirate Captain said, "and we're here to do what no one else will." He extended his hand towards him. "The parts. Now." Captain Stern held a parcel up for the Pirate Captain to see.

"You can't have this," he growled, shaking it for emphasis, "I bought this for my own research."

"Then I'll take it from you."

"Over my dead body!"

"That can be arranged." Oh dear. That wasn't good. The Doctor was about to speak up, to get in the middle of the confrontation and end it, when the pirate at the computer beat him to it.

"Archie," he said, "this is impossible, I don't think we can get in. They're using a form of encryption I've never seen before. We'll have to just take the whole tower, do we have anything to transport it?" Archie—Pirate Captain—turned his attention from Captain Stern and instead of perusing violence, went to the computer Pirate's side, eyeing the laptop's screen wearily.

"That's a problem," he said slowly, "that is definitely a problem. I don't think we have any way to secure the transport. Amber, are you sure you can' they into it?"

"If I wasn't sure," Amber replied, "I wouldn't have brought it up. We're running out of time, Boss, someone's bound to have noticed what was going on by now, we need to take what we can and scram." All was silent for a moment, and the Doctor decided now was as good a time as any to add in his commentary.

"You know," he said boldly, "you haven't done anything here yet today that you can't walk away from. Trust me." Slowly, he began to move forward, careful of the dog Pokemon snapping at his heels in warning. "No one's hurt. You haven't done any damage. Just walk away and we'll forget the whole thing. What do you say, eh?" But the pirates weren't listening to him. No one ever listened to him, the Doctor thought bitterly, and no one ever took him up on his offerings of peace. That's usually why things went bad. Begrudgingly, he began to accept the fact that this might be another one of those instances, that something bad may still happen.

"Unless," Archie suddenly said, face set into a thoughtful frown. Slowly, he reached into his shirt and withdrew whatever it was he had stashed in there, some sort of metallic rod and—the Doctor's eyes widened. He would recognize his sonic screwdriver anywhere. Well, that was one mystery solved.

"Um, yes, excuse me," he said, "that's mine, so if you could just sort of toss it my way, we'll definitely forget all about—" Archie gripped the sonic tightly and pointed it with conviction at the computer screen before taking a deep breath and clicking the button. The tell-tale whir of the sonic vibrated through the room, and the Doctor lunged to snap it out of his hands, but the pirates who had brought him up grabbed him by the wrists and shoulders and yanked him back. A second later, the computer's encryption was broken, and files and documents displayed readily on the screen. Amber let out a note of intrigue and hunched back over the laptop, eyes darting about the interface before he let out a laugh.

"Kyogre!" He exclaimed, "it worked, it actually worked! How did you figure that out?"

"One of the grunts who found it said it messed with their AreaNav when they tested it," Archie replied, "I just kind of hoped..."

"You need to give that back!" The Doctor said, "that's my screwdriver, you need to give it back! You've gotten your use out of it, you don't need it anymore, so just—" He yanked one shoulder out of the grip of the grunt and thrust it abruptly forward, palm-up, eyes searching Archie's face desperately for any sign that he would comply. The Doctor felt absolutely naked without his screwdriver, without the TARDIS, felt like a part of him was missing and he needed his screwdriver back. It wasn't just like he could go get himself another one. But Archie merely smirked and flipped the screwdriver into the air, catching it.

"No," he mused, "no, I think I've just begun to get my use out of it. I think this will go a long way for Team Aqua. Thank you, sir, for your contribution to the cause." The Doctor bit back a biting remark and lunged again for it, but again was held back. One problem out of the way, Archie turned back to Captain Stern, reached for his belt, and pulled a pokeball on him, from which he released a large blue bat that screeched loudly upon its arrival. "Now, Captain Stern," Archie continued, "allow me to ask you again. The parts, please." Captain Stern eyed the bat for a good, long moment, and the Doctor could see the fear in his widened eyes—Archie probably could too. Captain Stern swallowed harshly.

"No," he said again, "these parts are for research that will benefit the people of Hoenn."

The Doctor had to do something. This was going horribly. Incredibly, incredibly horribly. So far, this was not his favorite part of the day. And then it hit him. He was near the grunts who'd taken Sapphire and Ruby's pokeballs. In fact, the Doctor felt with conviction that he could, with one good lunge, grab at least one of the pokeballs, if not the whole belt. And he had seen Sapphire battle her Pokemon earlier. How hard could it be? That was it. That was his plan. Get the Pokemon, battle it, save the day. Just another adventure in the life of the Doctor. And so that's what he did.

With one final, powerful lunge that his captors were unprepared for, the Doctor grabbed wildly at the pokeball belts in the one grunt's hands, and though he wasn't able to grab the belt in its entirety, he managed to get his hands on the pokeball that had been closest to him and threw it to the floor. In the commotion, the pokeball burst open, light beaming out to materialize in the electrike that Sapphire had saved him from earlier that day. It looked much better now than it had when she captured it, and the Doctor supposed that must have been due to their stop at the Pokemon Center earlier, and it shook itself, static sparkling along its fur as it growled savagely.

"Doctor?" Sapphire cried, but the Doctor's attention was focused entirely on the electrike. How would he command it? Would it just listen to him? It was kind of giving him a grumpy look, but every now and then its eyes would flash to the bat, and it slowly lowered itself into a more and more threatening stance.

"So, you want to fight, do you?" Archie chuckled, "alright. If it will shut you up, I'll give you a fight. Golbat!" The bat spun around, first to look at Archie, who pointed for it, and then to look at the electrike, who it proceeded to not seem to take too seriously. The Doctor wasn't sure whether or not he should have been offended by that; after all, the poor trikey had zapped him immobile for a good moment earlier that day. Oh. That was a good name. Trikey. Time to make things up and pretend he knew what he was doing.

"Trikey," the Doctor said, "headbutt!" And they waited. And nothing happened. Trikey looked back to the Doctor with an expression that could only be described as incredibly, utterly confused, and Archie laughed aloud.

"You must be new to this," he taunted, "to not even know what sort of attacks your Pokemon can use... It's shameful. Golbat, Confuse Ray." Golbat beat its wings frantically as its eyes lit with an ominous purple, screeching, but the Doctor decided not to even give it the chance. He did know one thing Trikey could do.

"Lightning!" He cried, "Trikey, lightning at it!" Well, more or less. Trikey seemed to understand that at any rate and turned, shuffling as static continued to sparkle around its fur, until it suddenly threw itself at Golbat, slammed into it, and a large spark fired off of its fur. Golbat screeched, and it and Trikey both fell to the floor, the former writhing as jolts of electricity shot through it, and the latter stun lying around as though dazed.

"Golbat—" Archie began, but Amber cut him off.

"Boss, we need to haul ass!" He said, "I've got the data, let's split, sentry spotted Magma approaching the museum!" Archie growled, his eyes darting from the Pokemon battle, then to the parts that Captain Stern was still holding close and protected.

"That's right," the Doctor bluffed, "run, I've got you on the ropes!"

"Oh, you'd wish!" Archie snapped. He held up the screwdriver. "Golbat, Screech!" The bat flopped around pathetically on the floor for a moment but was able to pull itself up, even with Trikey still meandering confused lay around it, and let out the most awful ear-splitting sound the Doctor had ever heard; Archie raised the screwdriver into the air and clicked it on, and suddenly the most awful ear-splitting sound in the world became much worse. With a pained cry, the Doctor and the others clasped their hands tightly over their ears and fell to the floor, and taking their moment of weakness to his advantage, Archie hustled the rest of Team Aqua out.

Before the Doctor was able to recover and get back to his feet, Team Aqua was soon replaced by a swarm of people wearing red hoods who went about helping everyone up, making sure they were okay. The young man who came to the Doctor's side was average of height with purple hair under his hood and a Bluetooth microphone on his ear.

"Ye alright, mate?" He asked, "looks like them Aquas got ye pretty good."

"I'm fine," the Dcotor replied as the young man helped him up, "I'm fine, but that noise—"

"Tabitha, report." The young man made sure the Doctor could stand on his own, then whirled around to face a man of average height, his long red hair parted into a widow's peak at his forehead. Unlike the others wearing hoods, he wore a long red coat with a black accent taking over the entire left shoulder and arm, and he exuded an air of refined class the pirates before had not given the Doctor in the slightest.

"Maxie, sir," Tabitha said, "no lastin' damage, everyone seems arright. Nothin' seems like it was stolen." Maxie nodded and approached Captain Stern.

"Captain," he greeted evenly, "I apologize we weren't faster. We are Team Magma, and our aim is to put a stop to Team Aqua's petty terrorism. Were they able to take anything from you?"

"No," Captain Stern said hesitantly, "no, we stalled them long enough. I don't understand. Why are you...?"

"Team Aqua wishes to flood the Earth with seas," Maxie said, "and the human race is already suffering from overcrowding enough. I hope you will agree that someone needs to put an end to their insanity. I would like for my men to investigate here for a while so we may hopefully discern Team Aqua's plans. They will, of course, protect you from future attacks from undesirables. Is that objectionable?"

"Well, no," said Captain Stern, "but—"

"We'll decide the details, later." Maxie then turned his attention to Ruby and Sapphire, smiling awkwardly. "It's good to see that you children are unharmed. I presume these are your Pokemon?" He motioned, and two grunts came forward, having recovered the belts when the Aqua grunts must have left them behind. Sapphire and Ruby thanked him and took their belts back, securing them about their waists. "I hope in the future you will be able to lend us your aide in fighting Team Aqua. For now, perhaps it would do you well to rest. And as for you..." Finally, he turned to the Doctor, eyeing him carefully.

"Yes, me," the Dcotor replied, "hello! I'm the Doctor—just the Doctor. Listen, I don't suppose you could give me a hand with something concerning those pirates who just left—"

" _Doctor_ ," Maxie said slowly, "we saw you. This morning. In your ship. I think..." His gaze flickered from the Doctor to the Captain and the kids, then to Tabitha, and finally settled back not the Doctor. " _...we need to talk._ "


	3. Proposition

_We need to talk._ That was what Maxie had said nearly an hour ago at the museum. The Doctor had paused then, eyes alight with curiosity, sizing him up, sizing up the conviction of his reasoning. This Maxie fellow claimed to have seen the TARDIS—or, at least that his mates had. Truthfully, the fact remained that the Doctor was floundering like a fish out of water without her or even his screwdriver, and these Team Magma fellows seemed worlds better than Team Aqua. After Maxie's proposition, the Doctor had returned Trikey to Sapphire and assisted the young man who had helped him up, Tabitha, in checking up on everyone who had been in the museum at the time of the break-in, making sure no one was hurt or that those who had been were patched up, all the meanwhile Maxie continued to discuss arrangements for his grunts to remain as bodyguards with Captain Stern. Definitely, _definitely_ kinder than Team Aqua.

It wasn't long before Tabitha guided the Doctor out of the museum to where he was now, sitting in a dimly-lit room in the back of a trailer. Computers with screens analyzing various data, displaying maps, graphs, and charts of all kinds lines the walls, and in the center of the room, a small square table sat with two chairs, one of which the Doctor was currently seated in. Tabitha had shut him in briefly after asking if he needed any refreshments, and the Doctor hadn't seen him now for several minutes.

To pass the time, he idly watched the monitors, eying the data to make sense of it; one map seemed to be a road map of the country, with icons of blue and red flags scattered about monitor next to it showed what appeared to be readings of the atmosphere and was far more interesting to the Doctor; while there were some miscellaneous blips here and there, the one that caught his attention seemed much larger and was a bright green, zipping around with ease. Occasionally, the live camera feed in the bottom corner of the screen would switch to show a flash of the same color green shooting in front of it, though the Doctor was unable to make out what it was. Still, he mused, this was _probably_ how they'd seen his ship. That was certainly reassuring.

He continued to watch the monitors for a moment longer before the door to the room opened abruptly, a column of light shooting in from outside that the Doctor has to squint to see through. Just as quickly, the door was closed, and blinking to readjust, the Doctor watched quietly as Maxie took the seat across from him and Tabitha, following behind, set a tray with a kettle and two teacups on the table next to them.

"Thank you, Tabitha," Maxie said, off-handedly as Tabitha poured the cups for them.

"Yes, thank you," the Doctor echoed, and reached for the cup Tabita set before him, "oh, splendid, I've been dying for a tea break all day. I don't suppose you have any Jammie Dodgers, do you?" Tabitha opened his mouth to answer—the delighted look on his face was a good sign—but Maxie quickly cut them off.

"This will be enough. We've business to discuss after all," he said, and Tabitha quickly shut his mouth and bowed before stepping back to hover by the wall at ease, his hands placed neatly behind his back; like a soldier, the Doctor thought, and though he was pleased with both Team Magma's performance in the museum and the fact they had provided him with tea, something uneasy began to settle into his stomach.

"Right," the Doctor agreed slowly, " _business._ You said you saw my ship." Maxie pursed his lips.

"We saw _a_ ship," he replied, "I'm _assuming_ it belongs to you. After all, it's not every day a man falls out of the sky just as a phone box crashes into the earth."

The Doctor let out a bit of a chuckle, offering the most patient smile he was capable of. "Yeah, that would be it. Big blue box falls out of the sky, it'd most definitely the Doctor in the TARDIS." He jerked his thumb in the direction of the video feed behind him and leaned forward onto his elbows, lacing his fingers together in front of him. "That must really come in handy, eh? Nothing probably gets passed you lot."

It took Maxie a moment to respond, his eyes drifting slowly to the screen. For a second, his gaze seemed to turn sour, brow furrowing and lip curling just the slightest bit, though perhaps it was just a trick of the light. "Hardly anything at all," he agreed, "and naturally, when anything... _alien_... Lands in our region, we take great lengths to track it down."

"You've got me there. Bonfide alien right here!" Again, the Doctor chuckled. "I must say, I'm a little bit surprised that you, well, _aren't._ "

"We been trackin' ye fer days," Tabitha piped up, and though Maxie rolled his eyes and gave the young man a pointed stare, he didn't seem to notice. "Last week is when we first caught ye on the scanners, an' then that thing shot ye down." He, as well, pointed to the screen, to the massive green blip they were tracking, and the Doctor turned to stare at it again.

"Well, that was rude of it," he mused, "what is it? It's _incredibly_ fast..."

"He's called Rayquaza," Tabitha told him, "long ago when there was only darkness, Rayquaza breathed his breath inte the void and made the sky— then he made the stars an' the planets an' Earth, until finally he made Groudon an' Kyogre. Then he looked upon his creation and returned te the heavens to protect it. Ain't no wonder he shot ye down, since ye ain't from here. Ye ain't his creation, mate."

"That's the lore of it, at any rate," Maxie finally cut back in with a scowl at Tabitha, who lowered his head like a scolded pup and again went silent. "In reality, Rayquaza is an extremely rare, extremely _powerful_ Pokemon that brings clear skies with it wherever it goes. It lives in the upper shell of the atmosphere, flying indefinitely—and it appears to be very territorial."

"I see," the Doctor said, "and so why are you tracking it, then? It doesn't seem like it would be a bother to any of you." Maxie held up his hand, and Tabitha turned to shuffle with something for a moment before handing him a manila folder, which he set on the table and splayed open, searching through the papers within for a few specific ones that eh then pushed towards the Doctor.

Mostly, the papers were photographs of what appeared to be an old cave painting that had been marked at the side of the page as being about nine meters high. It depicted three monsters, one appearing to be a fish, one something that the Doctor could only seem to find it in him to describe as a demon lobster, and above the both of them, a large, snake-like dragon. Between them were crude images of destruction, of ancient people dying and mourning. The Doctor's eyes narrowed.

"As legend tells," Maxie explained, "millennia ago, the legendary Pokemon Kyogre and Groudon roamed the earth in a never-ending battle for territory. The carnage even one could cause has the potential to decimate every civilization on the planet _today_ , let alone back then. They caused never-ending rain and ceaseless drought. It's a wonder the human race survived back then. But Rayquaza is able to contain and pacify these two Pokemon, and was able to seal them away far below the surface. Our intelligence indicates Team Aqua's intent is to awaken Kyogre and flood the Earth."

"So you're going to use Rayquaza to stop it," the Doctor realized, and Maxie nodded.

"Of course, a Pokemon of that immense power—you can see why it might be hard to capture it," he sighed, "unfortunately, none of our Pokemon would be able to stand up to it. And that, my dear Doctor, is where _you_ come in."

The Doctor frowned, head quirking. They wanted him to go after this Rayquaza for them? But hadn't they just told him that it would fight anything foreign that entered its territory? And without the TARDIS or his sonic or even a Pokemon of his own, to boot! Quite frankly, the Doctor didn't have the foggiest of how he would approach the situation, wondered whether or not he could even reason with it, if it could communicate in a way the TARDIS could translate or if it had some sort of psychic capabilities they could communicate across.

"I'm not sure if I can help," he finally said, "without my ship, I'd be next to useless against it, and even then...," and it was Maxie's turn to laugh.

"We're not expecting you to fight it," he clarified, "in fact, that's a challenge I'll be undertaking, personally. But there's something else. Something I need in order to challenge it."

"Ah, and you need me to get it?" That made more sense, he supposed, though he refrained from pointing out that was probably something Maxie could take of far better than he could, as well; considering he had an entire little group united under him, it seemed more logical to entrust that to one of the grunts. "I suppose I can help. What is it you need?" Maxie nodded to Tabitha, who perked up as though his earlier scolding hand't taken place and jumped forward with print-outs of more photos—still images, the Doctor realized, from their satellites.

"Ye ain't the only thing that Rayquaza shot down!" he announced, and pointed to one of the blurry images. There was something, some pointed, shadowy figure, and a green blur in the vague shape of a dragon bathed in what seemed to be green mist shooting it down with an energy blast. "That there, we think it's a Pokemon. We got shots of it fightin' back—it's gotta be a Pokemon." He flipped through the papers, and the Doctor studied each and every one.

"It was shot down over Hoenn and plummeted into the sea," Maxie continued, "as far as we can tell, it was taken into the research center at Mossdeep—but it remained in the atmosphere to battle Rayquaza for more than three minutes. Even you plummeted after mere seconds, Doctor. This Pokemon is our key to capturing Rayquaza. I'd ask you to liberate it from the research facility and deliver it to me—that's all."

"I'm assuming this is in return for you recovering my ship." Nothing for nothing, that was how humans always seemed to work—while it didn't necessarily bother the Doctor, something was telling him they weren't about to assist him until he' done as Maxie had asked. Wasn't that extortion, or something? Maxie confirmed this for him without missing a beat.

"I'm sure you're less than thrilled," he said, "and under normal circumstances, I would have my men escort you without issue. But you need to understand, stopping Team Aqua is our priority, and... Well, your vessel isn't exactly nearby." Oh. Oooohhhh, no. What? Exasperated, the Doctor ran a hand back through his hair and scratched at the back of his neck. Nothing could ever be easy, could it?

"I was afraid of that," he sighed, "so you know where it is, at least?" Maxie and Tabitha exchanged glances.

"Well... It ain't easy to find," Tabitha admitted, "Courtney, she says it's like it ain't wantin' te be found. But we been able to narrow it down to one region, so there's that." The Doctor let out a groan.

"Alright," he grumbled, "Alright, this is fine. Everything is fine. Worst-case scenario. I planned for this. It's going to be okay. So which... Which region is it in?"

"Kalos," Maxie said, "and once you bring us the Pokemon, I'll be happy to fund your ferry ticket. Do we have a deal?" He extended his hand across the table. Quite frankly, it seemed to be a simple task, but then again, maybe the Doctor was just too used to jailbreaking alien life. Still, the cause seemed relatively noble, after all, Maxie and Team Magma seemed rather dedicated to keep the world from being drowned out, and quite frankly, he had no idea how he was going to get to—Kalos?—the TARDIS otherwise. It wasn't like he had any money or even any idea of how much a trip there would cost. Slowly, he extended his hand, but stopped just short of taking Maxie's.

"A Pokemon that rare and powerful seems to be worth more than just a trip abroad to somewhere my ship _might_ be," he said, "there's something extra I need to ask you for. That fellow leading Team Aqua—he has something of mine. A tool I can use to scan for my ship."

"We can get that back for you, too," Maxie agreed, "as long as you can bring us the Pokemon." They stared each other down, eye-to-eye, and the Doctor studied him intently. There was nothing dishonest about the way he said it, the Doctor realized, nothing malevolent in his intentions. It was an honest business proposition—help for help. And to boot, it seemed as if the fate of the world was in danger. Just another average day for the Doctor. He gripped Maxie's hand, and shook it firmly.

"Then I suppose we're working together," he said, "the Doctor at your service!"

"We're glad to have your assistance, Doctor. We'll supply you, of course—a map and some rations." They stood, and Maxie took a moment to glance him up and down. "And maybe a change of clothes, as well. While I'm certain those work very well for you in space, you'll certainly succumb to heat stroke in those. Tabitha?"

"Sir!" Tabitha snapped to attention, and again, all the Doctor could think of were soldiers.

"I want you to gather some of the spare supplies for the Doctor to take. Throw in an extra of our uniforms and teach him how to use a PokeNav. Load his map with secret base data and give him an emblem to access them, as well," Maxie ordered, and Tabitha responded with another acknowledgement of "sir!" and a bow as he had earlier, and turned to smile at the Doctor.

"C'mon," he said, "we'll get ye packed." The Doctor took a moment to chug his tea, and after thanking Maxie for the hospitality, followed Tabitha out of the room and back into the light. The rest of the trailer was mostly empty space with blankets and pillows tossed around here and there on the floor, though at the far end, there were cardboard boxes stacked to the ceiling and held in place by metal grating with a locked cell door in. Tabitha pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked it, shuffling inside to begin gently pulling boxes out in the most intense game of one-man Jenga the Doctor had ever watched.

"So Tabitha," the Doctor said, "how long has this been going on, with Team Aqua?"

"Oh, mate, it's been ferever," Tabitha grunted as he managed to lower one box to the floor and popped it open. He took out a worn khaki backpack and set that next to his feet before closing the box and putting it back up. "I were fourteen when I joined Magma, but they been around for years before that, and Aqua's been around almost as long. Those fuckers dunno what the hell they're doin', though, so we're always havin' te clean up after 'em." He paused, then added as an afterthought, "I turned nineteen back in May, if that gives ye any idea." The Doctor, on the other hand, was mildly amused.

"All that time, and he still has you making the tea?" Tabitha flashed him a wide grin, eyes dancing with mirth and laughed, and the Doctor found himself smiling a little in return.

"I don' mind, not really," came his reply, "I'm the field commander, see? Ain't much use at base unless I'm finishin' up maps er preppin' a team, so makin' the tea's a nice break. Alright, I think that's everythin'!" Finishing up with the last few boxes, Tabitha stacked them all neatly once more and then brought the satchel to the Doctor, locking the gate behind him. As he did, he held up in one hand two items—a yellow hand-held device and a bronze coin with the same design etched into it as the one that emblazoned the front of Tabitha's uniform—an M-shaped mountain that the Doctor took to refer to _Magma_.

"What are these?" he asked as Tabitha handed the two to him.

"That's a PokeNav and the emblem, jes' like Boss said," Tabitha replied. He pointed first to the device. "Yer Pokenav's already fitted with yer essentials—it's got a map function an' a news function. Yer map's got the location of secret bases we've made all over Hoenn, so ye can stop at any of 'em if ye need rest er shelter, er if ye need more supplies."

"Alright," the Doctor mused, "simple enough." He pressed in the power button and waited for the screen to light up, and true to Tabitha's word, the map and news apps were already installed. Thankfully, it seemed GPS was involved—as he opened the AreaNav, it centered immediately on a flashing block labeled _Slateport_ , with a tiny icon displaying his current location. It even noted a few of what the Doctor assumed to be landmarks—a Pokemon Center and PokeMart, a Name Rater, a Contest Hall... He suddenly became aware that Tabitha had come to watch over his shoulder as the other man tapped a button on the screen to zoom out and swiped left across it to scroll to an island town to the northeast.

"That's Mossdeep," he explained, "it's in the middle of the ocean not too far from Lilycove. What yer gonna wanna do is swing around through route 118 and then cut up through 123. Ye'll pass right by Mt. Pyre, ye can't miss it. Then head east te Lilycove and catch a ferry from there."

"Simple," the Doctor agreed, "that shouldn't be so bad." He set the Nav into rest mode and dropped it into his pockets before holding up the emblem. "So then what's this for?"

Tabitha explained to him that the emblem was used to gain access to any of Magma's bases, and that he would need it when he brought the unidentified pokemon back for them. When he ran out of rations and needed more, he told him, it was what would prove to other Magma's that he was allowed to enter their secret bases, as well, and that it was probably better to only show the emblem to other Magmas.

The Doctor intended to ask why that was, but Tabitha ignored him and quickly ran through everything else he had equipped the Doctor with, including a supply of twenty pokeballs, a week's worth of freeze-dried food, and a team Magma uniform "in case that nice suit o'yers gets too warm, arright?" He had to take special care of the uniform because Tabitha was quite adamant that they would be wanting it back once their business together had concluded. They couldn't spare him any money or Pokemon, either, because apparently they were strapped for both.

Still, what they _had_ supplied him with had been gracious enough, the Doctor mused as he bid Tabitha goodbye and stepped out of the trailer and back into the port air. Taking a deep breath, he slung the worn satchel across his shoulder and decided to return to the Pokemon Center to see if he could find Sapphire. It turned out she wasn't there, but Nurse Joy was able to tell him that she had, in fact, stopped by to heal up her Pokemon before departing for the northern route. Thanking her, the Doctor continued on his way.

When he left the city limits, he spotted Sapphire with ease. She was near a patch of tall grass like the one she had found him in earlier that day, with Shroomy and Chickadee out of their pokeballs and waiting patiently by her feet as she fiddled with her pokedex. As the Doctor approached, she glanced up and smiled broadly at him, waving him over.

"Hey, Doctor," she greeted, "was Team Magma able to help you find your boat?"

"Something like that," the Doctor answered, "they asked me to run an errand in return for their help. I don't suppose you've got plans to head towards Mossdeep anytime soon?" Sapphire laughed and shook her head apologetically.

"Sorry," she replied, "I still have some things to do on the mainland. There are still gyms I need to face, so I won't be heading that way for a long time. If you want, though, you're welcome to follow me to Mauville, I'm going to head there, next."

"If it isn't too much of a trouble," he said, "I wouldn't look forward to a repeat of this morning." Sapphire laughed her agreement and beckoned him again as she set off at a leisurely place, her Pokemon following at her heels. The Doctor fell in step just a few paces behind them; he was lucky to have been able to catch her before she left. They took a path under a raised bridge, but the path was full of tall grass, and that meant plenty of wild Pokemon—if the Doctor had come this way on his own, he was certain he would have been attacked by more Pokemon and left for dead. Again. Frankly, since he and Sapphire would inevitably have to part ways, he supposed he should be looking into either finding someone to travel with in Mauville, or maybe even getting a Pokemon of his own. It would certainly help, at any rate.

Even if they would eventually have to part, Sapphire was still a good companion to travel with at the moment. She made her way slowly, coming through the grass along the path until she found a new Pokemon, at which point she would send either Shroomy or Chickadee to fight it until it was worn out. Then she would wind up and lob a pokeball with a practiced finesse that the Doctor couldn't help but admire, and they would stop to watch as the pokeball shook once, twice, three times, before it would ding, and Sapphire would pluck it up and plug it into her pokedex, and after jumping around and squealing with victory and delight both, she would show the Doctor her new capture's entry and explain why she had always wanted to catch a Pokemon like that. After about the third or fourth time, the Doctor came to conclusion that Sapphire quite literally just wanted to catch all of them.

"Sapphire," he asked her after she had shown him the entry for the magnemite she caught, "I don't quite understand. You've said before that when you catch Pokemon it's to be their friends, didn't you?"

"Yup!" Sapphire nodded, the excited smile never once leaving her face as she continued to lead the way, "that's the plan! It's important to befriend your Pokemon, you know, my dad's published papers on it. I mean, it's like togepi and pichu, you know? Some Pokemon can only evolve with a strong bond."

"Then why do you hurt them before you capture them?" Sapphire paused and turned to look at him, her brows knitting and her lips pursing as she tilted her head to one side, looking as though he'd suddenly grown two heads—though for all the Doctor knew, maybe there were Pokemon on this planet that did have two heads and it wasn't as odd an occurrence as he assumed it was—before she sighed.

"Look, you're from Fiore, right? They've outlawed Pokemon capture and Pokemon training, you know? And that's one way to do things, but you all don't understand." Sapphire motioned to Chickadee, who was standing proudly next to her. "Pokemon _battle_. Even in the wild, they fight each other. It's just how it is. A lot Pokemon will respect stronger Pokemon, and even the trainers of strong Pokemon that beat them. But battling a wild Pokemon isn't about hurting it, okay? You just need to tire it out so it doesn't break out of the pokeball."

"Wait, wait," the Doctor said, unsure if he heard her correctly, "they can break _out_ of the pokeballs?" Sapphire rolled her eyes.

"Of _course_ they can," she said, "why do you think Silph Corp developed great balls and ultra balls?"

"There's more than one kind?" And Sapphire had finally laughed again and explained yes, there was more than one kind—in fact, there were a ton of them, with more in development every day, and some worked better than others. She dug into her bag and withdrew a handful of pokeballs to show him. One was blue with red, raised parts, and she called that one a greatball, which she said was more powerful than a regular pokeball, but less powerful than an ultra ball. One looked like a regular pokeball, but it had yellow and black concentric circles, and that one was a repeat ball, which worked better when it was used against a Pokemon she had already caught. One in particular caught the Doctor's eyes, and it was a pure white pokeball with a red band around the middle, and _that one_ , she told him, was a premiere ball—it was a regular pokeball, but it looked nicer, and was only given away as prizes for events or PokeMart loyalty members. It was a lot to take in, and Sapphire assured him there were many more—but also mentioned most trainers could explain the differences between them, and so if the Doctor ever came across one he didn't recognize, he could always just find someone to ask.

Quite frankly, he was tempted to stick to regular pokeballs, and when he said this aloud, Sapphire laughed. "You can definitely do that if you want," she said, "but there are a lot of Pokemon you can't easily catch with just a pokeball. It's not impossible, just difficult." If he had his screwdriver, the Doctor would have begged to differ, but as it was currently the focus of a rescue mission from the hands of Team Aqua, he supposed he'd just have to deal with it for now.

The day pressed on, and the Doctor continued to watch Sapphire carefully as she caught wild pokemon and battled other trainers, all the while continuing to make steady progress towards their destination. By the time she finished collecting everything that needed to be collected and fighting everything that needed to be fought, it was late afternoon, and they finally arrived in Mauville City. The entire town was built as a large, rectangular building, and as they entered, cool AC blasted the Doctor delightfully in the face. He hadn't realized until that moment how thoroughly he had been sweating through his clothes. Suddenly he found himself thankful for Tabitha letting him take a Magma uniform along.

Of course, they immediately passed through the building and out into a courtyard in the center, and for a second, the Doctor was miserable and sweating out his eyes once again, but they very quickly made their way into the Pokemon Center where Sapphire got her Pokemon healed and booked them two rooms in the back to stay the night, which Nurse Joy led them to.

They each took a minute to leave their things in their respective rooms and freshen up, and as the Doctor removed his tweed jacket to cool better in the air conditioning, he realized with exasperation that his shirt was entirely soaked through. He'd have to see if the Pokemon center had a washer or something he could throw it into. In fact, quite frankly, he would probably just need to wash everything. With a sigh, he stripped himself down and had a quick rinse in the shower before re-dressing himself in the undershirt and comfy-looking pants provided with the Magma uniform. The hood, he decided, was a little too bold, and so instead he settled for donning his tweed jacket once more, and though it looked just a tad bit off, of course he had to keep his bow tie.

Sapphire was waiting for him out in the hallway by the time he'd finished getting ready, and she smiled at him—probably, the Doctor thought, she had enough experience staying in Pokemon centers from her journey that she had this part down to a science, because he now caught the faint smell of what he would identify as something a dryer sheet company could name 'mountain breeze'.

"You clean up pretty nice," Sapphire said, eyes alight with mirth, "I was going to wander the town a bit before bed, wanna come?"

"Sure," the Doctor agreed, but then held up his wadded-up shirt and slacks. "Do they have anywhere I can wash these, here?" Sapphire nodded, and took him to a wash room where her combusken was sitting atop a counter, kicking its legs idly as it watched a washer spin. Sapphire went to the machine and paused it so the Doctor could open it and throw his things in, too, and after letting it continue its wash cycles, she reminded Chickadee to change it over when it was done, and not to pick on strange Pokemon. Then, she and the Doctor headed out of the Pokemon center and back into the main building, wandering the bottom floor as they checked out the shops.

There were a ton of them—definitely more than there had been in Slateport's open-air market, and plenty of services, too. They stopped by a masseuse to get Shroomy a quick massage, after which the tiny Pokemon returned smelling like spearmint and victory, and then they stopped by a shop that sold ribbons for what seemed to be a ridiculous amount of money by the way Sapphire cringed just looking at them. There were a bunch of people who called themselves move tutors who tried to convince her that they could bestow her Pokemon with ultimate power only to change their mind upon seeing that she only had a shroomish with her at the moment, and a bike shop where Sapphire, being a registered League challenger, was offered a free bike in exchange for advertising "Rydel's Rides."

"Oh man," Sapphire said as the owner offered her a pick of one of the two types he carried, "acro bikes are _so cool_ , you can do some really good tricks on them—and they're nice and light-weight!"

"You should take that one, then," the Doctor suggested, but Sapphire had already moved on to the other bike.

"But the Mach bike can get to some serious top speeds! Think of all the ground I could cover! _Which one do I pick?_ " In the end, since Sapphire was going to continue north to the desert, Rydel suggested she take the Mach bike, which she seemed incredibly happy with.

They went back to the Pokemon center for her to leave it in her room, and then they returned to the shopping district, circling their way around and subsequently discovering the food court, which they decided to circle back to when they were finished. Finally, they went to visit the Pokemon Gym, which was already closed for the evening, but Sapphire was able to read the sign out front and determine what Pokemon she would need to bring with her the following day.

Determining that had seen everything worth seeing, they returned to the food court, and Sapphire was kind enough to purchase rice bowls for the both of them. She even offered to let the Doctor get as many toppings and extras as he wanted, but the Doctor stuck to plain-looking rice, with plain fried egg and some vegetables, but Sapphire went all-out getting every extra sauce, pork cutlets, extra vegetables, fried rice—considering all the work she did during the day, the Doctor supposed it only made sense that she was so hungry. They mostly ate in silence, because Sapphire was far more preoccupied with catching up on all the calories she burnt that day to refuel than the Doctor was; all that running and jumping and battling, it seemed like it was exhausting, but not for once had she missed a beat, and the Doctor was convinced she had more than earned that healthy appetite. Soon enough, they were both finished, and they threw their garbage into the trash and returned to the Pokemon Center. Chickadee was waiting for them in the lobby with their freshly-laundered clothes in a basket, watching the news channel on the TV with mild interest, and not wanting to disturb it, they took the basket and returned to their rooms, where the Doctor took his clothes out of the stack and was about to bid Sapphire goodnight and return to his room when he felt her hand close about his wrist.

"Doctor," she said, with quite possibly the most serious face she'd had all day, "you're leaving first thing in the morning, aren't you?" Well, to be honest, he hadn't really thought about it—it would only make sense, get an early start and all, but then there was the trouble of finding someone to travel with so he didn't have to deal with the wild Pokemon by himself, and who knew how long that would take. For all the Doctor knew, he would be in the Pokemon center soliciting help all day, or even two or three days, depending on how much traffic it got. Sapphire seemed convinced otherwise, though, and before the Doctor could stop her, she reached into her pocket and withdrew a pokeball before holding it out to him.

"Sapphire," he began, brow furrowing, but she shook her head.

"Take it." She pressed it firmly into his hand. "It's the electrike from this morning. You need to be able to protect yourself when you travel, and it listened to you at the museum. It should go with you."

The Doctor turned the pokeball over in his hands, and slowly he felt the smile breaking out across his lips. "Thank you, Sapphire. That's very kind of you. I'll make sure to take care of him." Sapphire smiled as well.

"If I don't catch you in the morning, I hope you have a safe journey," she said, "and if you want to catch more Pokemon along the way, you should speak to Nurse Joy before you leave, alright? Goodnight, Doctor." The Doctor echoed her goodnight, and the two went into their separate rooms.

As he shut the door, the Doctor looked again at the pokeball before lifting it up to point at the bed, and pressing the button, Trikey materialized in a beam of red light. He sneezed and shook his head, glancing wearily around the room before his eyes finally landed on the Doctor, and for a second, the Doctor felt a flash of something—a flash of calmness. From Trikey? Trikey sat down and made himself comfortable as the Doctor pondered the sensation. With a thoughtful frown, he approached the electrike and reached one hand slowly out; Trikey tilted his head and sniffed before pressing his nose into the Doctor's palm.

"Hello again, Trikey," the Doctoe said softly, and Trikey gave a small huff in reply. A greeting. Trikey was... Pleased? Pleased to see him. A telepathic field. There was a telepathic field on this planet, and the Pokemon could communicate on some level using it. The Doctor smiled. That would make life a lot easier as time went on. Over time, he could attune himself to it, and then even without the TARDIS, he'd be able to communicate. This was good. He gave Trikey a good petting, feeling the coarse fur dance with bits of static under his fingers in an oddly pleasing way before he packed his laundered clothes into his bag and set it off to the side. Then, he hopped up onto the bed and reclined along it, folding his hands atop his stomach. Trikey watched him for a minute before curling up in the space next to him.

"Best get some sleep," the Doctor told him, "first thing in the morning, we're setting off. An adventure, eh? How does that sound?" Trikey snuffled. "Good, I like the sound of that. You and me, Trikey, eh? Off to see the world! Next stop, Lilycove." He leaned over to switch off the light—he couldn't get his sonic back fast enough—and settled back down to sleep. A Pokemon, the Doctor decided as he was drifting off, would definitely make for a good companion.


	4. The Weather Institute

At some point in the night while he was sleeping, the Doctor had rolled off the bed (which never would have happened in a hammock, thus leading to the confirmation of hammocks being, obviously, the mostly supreme form of sleeping furniture in the known universe) and Trikey, uninhibited, had taken over the entire mattress, despite being less than a meter long total. Something told the Doctor that this was going to be a normal occurrence for a long while. Working the kink out of his neck, he pulled himself to his feet and did his best to tidy up what little of the room he had used before grabbing his bag and putting Trikey's pokeball into his pocket.

"It's time to wake up!" The Doctor announced as he prodded his new pokemon, though Trikey merely snuffled and began to curl up into a tiny ball, which the Doctor was having none of. Now without the restraint of having to depend on someone who may or may not understand the urgency with which he needed to get to Mossdeep, he was free to make progress at his own pace, and the sooner he could get to his TARDIS the better; he was ready to set off and do what he needed to, and if that involved carrying a half-conscious pokemon all the way, so be it.

Slipping his arms under Trikey's soft belly, he scooped the pokemon up and carried him squirming and whining out of the room. As he went into the main lobby of the Pokemon center, Trikey's fur let off a small bit of static, and as the Doctor's hand loosened reflexively, Trikey wiggled out of his grip and landed ungracefully on the laminate floor.

"Don't be like that," the Doctor scolded as Trikey gave him the smuggest look he'd ever seen on a green lightning wolf, "we have places to be! You can't just sleep around all day, can you?" Trikey barked his reply, and the Doctor rolled his eyes and turned to the counter, where a big, pink, round pokemon was standing patiently. "Oh, um, hello," he told it, "I was told to see Nurse Joy before I left. Is she... Is she in?" The pink thing replied with a calming, delightful note and waddled through a door behind the counter, and a moment later it returned with a very tired-looking Nurse Joy who was rubbing sleep blearily from her eyes.

"Did something happen?" She yawned as she approached, "it's three-thirty..."

"Sorry," the Doctor said, though he wasn't really sorry in the least, "I'm returning the key to the room," and he passed the key over the counter to Joy, who blinked tiredly at it for a moment before the briefest pieces of exasperation crossed her face. Still, she tried to smile as she took it from him.

"Is that all?" She asked wearily.

"Not quite. My friend told me if I wanted to catch extra Pokemon to speak with you," he explained, "I'm not quite sure why, she already showed me how to do it, but—"

"Do you have a trainer license?" Nurse Joy cut him off, "that might be what she was talking about. You need a trainer license and a league account to carry and use more than two Pokemon for battle."

"No," the Doctor said, "no, no, I'm from... I'm from Fiore." Nurse Joy leveled him with an odd stare, and so the Doctor dug in his jacket and withdrew the psychic paper, flipping it open for her. She leaned forward to observe it for a minute before her eyes widened.

"Oh!" She exclaimed, "I didn't realize we were taking refugees into Hoenn. If you give me a minute, I can register you. I'm surprised, though, I wouldn't have expected a Fioran to _want_ to become a trainer."

"Well, it's nice to have a companion," the Doctor replied, "and the more the better, eh?" Nurse Joy agreed, and set to work typing away at the computer. A good ten minutes later, she printed something, folded the paper neatly, and handed it to the Doctor.

"You're all registered," she told him, "this is your temporary Trainer Card. Until the real one comes in, you can use the trainer number and password on here to activate your account and access the storage system on the PC. Now just let me take your picture to mail in for your card, and you can be on your way." The Doctor didn't bother to ask what the storage system was for—quite frankly, he mused, he wouldn't even be here long enough to need it. Long enough to carry more than two Pokemon, _maybe_ , but not long enough to store anything.

Either way, he stood by the wall and straightened his bow tie for the picture, and once that was done, Nurse Joy told him his license would be delivered in a week or so, and she could have it sent to wherever he was going. Deciding he'd probably be in Mossdeep by then, the Doctor asked her to send it there, and then bidding her goodbye, he turned with Trikey and went out into the twilight of daybreak. Or something thereabouts; it was passed four now, and the sun was likely to rise in just a few hours. That seemed... _Forever_ away. Quite frankly, this whole _waiting_ through time thing was ridiculous. He didn't understand how humans could stand it all.

"Alright Trikey," he said, "let's see where we're going." Reaching into his bag, the Doctor felt around until he withdrew his PokeNav and powered it on like Tabitha had shown him the previous day. As soon as the map loaded, he crouched next to Trikey so he could see, as well. He seemed interested for all of a second until he cocked his head, and petting his fur, the Doctor could sense the confusion, the question forming in the pokemon's mind. He pointed towards their blinking icon. "This is us, right here, you see? And Tabitha said we have to go _all the way_ this way, to _here_..." He traced their path along the routes, swiping the screen until he pointed at Lilycove. Trikey tilted his head the other way for a minute before he decided to instead ignore it and put his nose to the Doctor's hair to sniff it. The Doctor gave up.

Still, it was good to regain his bearings. Now he just needed to decide which way was east. He licked his finger and stuck it in the air to feel the current, and then lifted his eyes to the stars. Obviously, they weren't the same—not at all, and though he didn't recognize them, some things never changed. He could hear them whispering, the whole of space, and then, abruptly, he turned left. "This way!" he announced, and set off confidently. Trikey snuffled and trotted after him, doing his best to keep up.

As they left the city, the Doctor couldn't help but feel calmed in the fading light of the stars. Even though the sky was different from anything he had seen, even though he couldn't pick out any of the stars or their names or their planets or life, there was something soothing about staring into the blackness of space, broken only by hopeful little glitters of light. He would love to go out there, explore—see everything new for the first time again. That had always been the most wonderful thing, before the Time War, just being able to hop wherever he damn well pleased and explore everything it had to offer. That time was over, though, and unless he could find the TARDIS in time and get back to his own universe, he would end up grounded for the rest of his life. That's why it made it all the more frustrating when the path abruptly ended in a length of riverbed, halting the journey before the Doctor could do so much as whine.

Even in the dim light of pre-morning, the Doctor could easily make out the rushing current, and he decided with certainty that trying to take a swim across it would lead to his untimely demise, and quite frankly, he wasn't willing to risk it. Not now, anyways. There had to be a better way to get across. Placing his hands on his hips, the Doctor's eyes traveled across the rushing water, eyeing the opposite bank before moving slowly to his own side. It really wasn't that far, but... As he continued to observe the situation, his gaze eventually fell to the rocks jutting out at various points in the water, and frowning thoughtfully, he made his way over.

As he drew near, it became obvious that he had not been the first person to be charged with such a struggle, and he saw worn indentations in the nearest rock that looked to be shaped just so that a foot could easily find purchase, and areas that seemed too distinctly fit for grabbing to have happened by accident. It seemed just as unsafe as swimming, but at the same time also seemed to be the better option. But then how would he get Trikey across? His Pokemon was staring dubiously at his horrible solution from around his ankles, and while the Doctor was certain he could cross with no problem, Trikey had mo means of clinging to him _or_ the rocks as they progressed.

"Trikey," the Doctor said suddenly, "I need you to go into your pokeball for a minute, alright?" He took the pokeball out of his pocket and pointed it at his newest companion, pressing the button on the front awkwardly and watching as the beam of light shot out to transform Trikey into energy and pull him back inside. Then, the Doctor held the button in and watched as the pokeball shrunk down small enough for him to slip it into his pocket. There. That would do it.

Breathing in deeply, the Doctor turned back to the rocks jutting out of the rushing current, and hitched up his jacket's sleeves. "Alright now," he said aloud, "let's do this in one quick try. No falling! Well, knowing me..." He let the sentence hang in the air, trying not to think of losing his footing and falling—wouldn't that be an embarrassing way to go—before he wound up and dashed, leaping across the gap to the first rock. His landing was a little wobbly, but he didn't have time to keep his balance; immediately, he leaped again, his long legs only an advantage as he landed on the next rock, and then the next. Quite frankly, it was astounding how they all lined up, almost as if someone had _designed_ them this way.

It was during this thought that he neared the opposite bank, victory surging within him; he made it this far, so surely he could make it the rest of the way. But fate seemed determined to prove him wrong, and as he leaped he realized too late that one of the rocks seemed far more wet than the rest, and as his foot met the smooth, slick surface he slipped. For a second, he continued to flail his feet, desperate to find any purchase he could to keep himself upright, but it wasn't to be; down he went, the sky growing father as the sound of rushing water came up behind his head, and at the last minute, the Doctor threw out his arms and grabbed wildly. For a moment water splashed up, covered his face and got in his nose and mouth and lungs, and he thought he had missed, that he was done for, but a second later he was sputtering and coughing and hugging the rock for dear life.

" _Timey-wimey_ ," the Doctor spat out, barely catching himself before he let loose a stream of Gallifreyan curses so adamantly colorful it would have made Captain Jack Harkness blush, and he slowly began to pull himself up before one hand slipped, and he quickly hugged back onto the rock before he could lose his grip altogether. The river rushed passed him, tugging at his jacket and bag and forcing him to drift ever so slightly in its force.

 _Alright_ , he said to himself, _alright, Doctor, just take it slow. Nice and easy._ Again, he tried to climb the rock, managed to pull himself at least half-up before again he slipped, and this time the current dragged him nearly out of reach; with one hand he managed to grab onto a groove that was just the right size. This had been the worst idea, this had been the absolute _worst_ idea, _Pazithi_ this was the absolute most terrible idea he'd ever had there was no way this could end well _did he even have any regeneration energy left quite frankly his entire life was a mess and he was sorry that he put Martha in danger and that he erased Donna's memory and that he left Rose to be trapped in a parallel dimension and that Rory and Amy were trapped forever in New York but he really thought he'd been redeeming himself and quite frankly he was not ready to die in a parallel universe_.

Determined to make one final attempt to pull himself to safety and apparently having learned absolutely nothing, the Doctor reached one final time to climb back up the rock, and he didn't know why he wasn't expecting to slip for a final time; unable to grip the rock in any significant way, the torrent dragged the Doctor off without mercy, and he thrashed and struggled desperately to keep his head above water. This was, certainly, the end.

Except then it wasn't. One second, the Doctor was fighting the current, but the next he was thrust up out of the water, something warm and moving beneath him, and he sputtered and spat water out of his throat as he looked down. The Pokemon beneath him was large and blue with odd tube-like horns protruding from its head, and it glanced up and back at him, seemingly making sure he was on and safe, before it turned to easily swim against the current towards the far shore.

"Thank you," the Doctor told the Pokemon, and it didn't say a word, but the Doctor could feel exasperation radiating off of it like heat. "Well, look, it wasn't my fault," he continued, "and I almost made it, anyways." It rolled its eyes.

As they reached the shoreline the Doctor could see a woman and a man with a camera waiting for them, and the Pokemon paused to allow him off onto the sand before trudging up after him, shaking its head and body before going to the woman's side.

"Good job, Pachelbel," she said, patting the Pokemon on the nose, and it grumbled a low note of contentment as it nuzzled up to her. She offered the Doctor a smile, then, tilting her head to the side. "You got yourself into some trouble there, huh?" The Doctor returned the smile sheepishly.

"Just a little!" he agreed, "I have to say, I'm quite lucky you were here. I don't think either of us would have..." He paused. _Trikey_. Frantically, the Doctor began patting his pockets, searching desperately for Trikey's pokeball, and he couldn't _find it_. Ignoring the woman's confused questions, the Doctor spun on his heel and began running back towards the river, eyes darting across its surface to try and catch any hint of the red or white of the pokeball. As he ran, his foot caught a rock, and down he went yet again, chin hitting hard into the dirt.

It rolled out of his pocket.

When the small red and white sphere rolled forward to rest in the Doctor's vision, a joyous cry loosed itself from his throat and he scrambled up onto his knees to snatch it up. He must not have felt it through his pants, it was so small when it contracted—well, that didn't matter. He pressed the button and watched it expand, then pressed it again and watched with relief as bright energy rematerialized as his newest companion. Trikey shook himself, a small showering of sparks fizzling to the ground.

"Trikey!" The Doctor said, "are you alright? Did you get wet, hurt, anything?" Trikey barked excitedly and wagged his stubby tail, and the Doctor breathed a sigh of relief and gave him a soft pat on the head. "Good," he replied, "I'm not ready to lose another friend just yet."

"I'm glad you're both okay," the woman said, and the Doctor gave her another sheepish smile. Her Pokemon grumbled what the Doctor could only assume was agreement. She waited patiently for the Doctor to get back to his feet and brush the dirt and mud off his knees before extending her hand firmly towards him. "I'm Gabby," she introduced herself, "I'm a reporter with PNN."

"Gabby!" The Doctor repeated, shaking her hand (and subsequently muddying it, though she didn't seem to terribly mind.) "I'm the Doctor. Just passing through! Nothing interesting going on here."

"You're a doctor?" Gabby asked. She squinted hard at him for a long moment, looking him up and down before frowning suspiciously. The Doctor remained unfazed, the smile remaining brightly on his face. After a few moments of sizing him up, Gabby spoke again. "What _kind_ of doctor?"

"Every kind!" the Doctor replied, "is that a problem?" The dubious look remained on Gabby's face, but after a moment, she merely shook her head and beckoned him on.

"Come on," she told him, "if you really _are_ a doctor, then there's something I need you help with. Pachelbel, let's go." Her Pokemon murmured its agreement and turned to lumber after her as she began walking, and the Doctor, confused but intrigued, followed without complaint. They had saved him, after all; it was only right to return the favor.

As they progressed along the path, it eventually gave way to more tall grass, much like the Doctor had seen the previous day after his crash-landing. To their left was a short ridge, a jutting rock face that came up maybe to about Gabby's shoulders, and to their right was simply more dirt leading back to the river. The Doctor was preparing himself to make his way through the tall grass (he reasoned that maybe if he ran headlong into it and didn't stop until he came out the other side, he might avoid another nasty encounter with a wild Pokemon) when Gabby instead turned towards the rocky ridge, grabbed hold, and hoisted herself up, scrabbling to find footholds before finally pulling herself up onto higher ground. Then, she turned and knelt to offer the Doctor a hand; wordlessly, he, too, grabbed hold of the ridge and climbed a few steps up it before taking her hand to finish pulling himself up, as well. Then, Gabby turned her attention back down to her Pokemon.

"Pachelbel, can you bring his electrike up with you?" She asked, and her Pokemon nodded, reached out one hand to scoop Trikey up (who seemed ecstatic by the entire situation) and then the Doctor watched, intrigued, as the Pokemon scaled the ridge in two entire steps—almost like it was walking up stairs.

"Gabby, what kind of Pokemon _is_ he?" He found himself asking, and Gabby shot him an amused look out of the corner of her eye.

"He's an exploud, of course," she said as though he ought to have known that, "but there's no time for questions. Come on."

After making sure their Pokemon were safely next to them, Gabby led him to a large bush off to the side; the Doctor eyed it in confusion. Something seemed _off_ about it, to be honest, something seemed... _Out of place_. And he was right; Gabby grabbed a handful of leaves and twigs and pulled off a false front off the bush, revealing an entrance into the rock face behind it. With her encouragement, the Doctor got to his hands and knees, and with paranoia singing in the back of his mind, crawled through. He needn't have worried; the tunnel was short, barely a few shuffles, and then he was back to his feet in a rather well-lit, cozy room that was surprisingly spacious for being carved into the side of a mountain. He stood to the side and brushed off his knees and coat as Gabby entered behind him, and then Trikey, and finally Pachelbel, who had a little trouble squeezing through, but managed all the same.

Gabby moved forward without waiting, hustling to the other side of the chamber, and as the Doctor looked up to see where he was going, he realized two things; the first, that this little hideaway was miraculously decorated, with tables and stools and rugs and even dolls and a couple beds, and the second that they weren't alone at all. The man Gabby had hurried to the side of was kneeling on the floor, dressed in ragged jeans and a faded t-shirt with a ball cap resting backwards over his hair; he was scruffy and unkept in almost even sense of the word, a few day's worth of stubble covering his chin and his hair unruly as it jutted out from under his cap.

Laying on the floor next to him looked to be a large bouquet of flowers, though the Doctor was intrigued to realize the bouquet was _breathing_. He came to the sudden realization that it wasn't, in fact, a bouquet, but a Pokemon, small and green and leafy with different colored rose petals where its hands should have been. Frankly, it wasn't the most surprising thing the Doctor had ever seen, but certainly he was curious; the Doctor was always curious when it came to new life forms, and this planet's were no exception, even in spite of his current predicament.

Realizing that this Pokemon must have been the reason Gabby brought him to the hideaway, the Doctor went to join them, standing just behind them as he peered down at the poor thing. Now that he was closer, he could see that its breathing was labored, its body limp and sweating big, fat dew drops. Parts of it seemed to be singed, and other parts simply wilting and withering away. The Doctor took a knee next to the others and reached out to press the back of his hand gently to the pokemon's forehead.

"She's burning up," he said, and the man with the backwards cap rolled his eyes and cast the Doctor a pointed stare.

"Yeah, _thanks_ Captain Obvious," he huffed, "we had _no_ idea."

"Ty," Gabby admonished, "this man says he's a doctor. Don't get snarky."

"You don't need to take her temperature to know she's sick," Ty retorted, motioning towards the pokemon absently, "just look at her! She's _dying,_ and even the pokemon center couldn't help! What makes _him_ so special?" It was Gabby's turn to roll her eyes; she didn't even grace Ty with an answer as she turned back to the Doctor, her expression grim.

"Don't mind him," she told the Doctor, "we've been stuck here for a couple days. She's too fragile to move and we can't get the supplies to help her."

"That's understandable," the Doctor replied, paying no mind to Ty's vitriol as he continued to examine the pokemon, "being stranded like this would make anyone cranky. You said the pokemon center couldn't help her? What's wrong with her? I've never seen anything like this before." In more ways than one, of course; it was hard to diagnose a species he had no knowledge of, and while his hearts went out to this poor little thing, he was afraid there wasn't much he could think of to do besides sun and water. She was a plant after all, wasn't she? "Could we move her outside, maybe, get her some light?"

Gabby shook her head as Ty snorted. "It's sun poisoning," Gabby said, the corners of her mouth twisting up into a wry, humorless smile. "I don't know if you've noticed, but the weather's been a little out of whack around Hoenn lately, torrential downpours and blazing droughts so terrifying it could fry a man to death. No one knows why it's happening. Most of the wild pokemon seem to know when it's coming, but this one must have gotten caught out in the middle of one of the droughts, nearly burnt to a crisp."

"When we took her in, but when we tried to carry her to town, she nearly burst into flames in the sunlight," Ty added. The Doctor looked up from the pokemon just in time to see Gabby place a reassuring hand on Ty's shoulder as he swiped at his eyes. "The centers don't have the right medicine to take care of this," he went on, "it's rare to see, especially with Hoenn's grass-types. The research facility in Mossdeep could take care of it, they have the right medicine, but..."

"But it's too far away," the Doctor finished. He sat back on his heels and ran a hand through his hair. Ty nodded solemnly.

"We've already contacted the research facility," Gabby said, "they have the medicine, and they're willing to send it to us. We sent Ty's magneton on its own, but even with how quick it can be, it's not going to make it in time. At the rate she's wilting..."

"There has to be another way," the Doctor mused, "something else we can do. The research center can't be the _only_ place with access to this medicine, not if that weather is becoming such an occurrence."

"They're sending out shipments next month. Until then, the only other place would be the research center's weather institute on the route north from here." _Ahh_ , there was some good news. The Doctor perked up at that; while it was curious as to why they wouldn't have gone to the weather institute in the first place, he could only assume there was some sort of problem—but problems could be worked around, if he really applied himself. That would be it. That would be this pokemon's saving grace.

"Then how about this," he said, "I'll go the weather institute and pick up this medicine for you. How far is it?"

Gabby and Ty exchanged dubious glances. "It's about a twenty or thirty minute walk," Ty said, "but it's a no-go. Gabby already tried, and those Aqua fuckers were crawling all over the place. Even with Pachelbel and Faraday, they were able to overrun her."

"Aqua?" The Doctor repeated, "you don't mean Team Aqua?"

"Yeah," Ty said, "they used to be harmless little shits, but they've gotten a little big for their britches lately and–what are you doing?" The Doctor had already whipped out his PokeNav and opened up the map function, filtering for the little red flag markers and scrolling through the area around his little icon. Gabby and Ty watched him for a few minutes before he finally cried out a triumphant "ah- _HA!_ " before he flipped his Nav around to show them.

"Here!" He announced, "this flag right here! There's a Team Magma base right here, not far from the weather institute." Again, Gabby and Ty exchanged looks, yet this time they both seemed deeply uncomfortable, and the Doctor cocked his head. "If it's number we need, they'd round us out a little, wouldn't they?"

"I thought you said you were a doctor," Gabby finally said after a long moment of uncomfortable silence, "but you're with Team Magma?"

"He's wearing part of the uniform," Ty suddenly added, "Gab, look. His pants."

" _Shit_ ," Gabby agreed, "Ty, he said he was a _doctor_ , I didn't even notice—"

"We were desperate Gab, I don't blame you, and besides, he's got that _jacket_ —"

"Sorry!" The Doctor cut in, his smile becoming the tiniest bit strained, "but I'm trying to help here. What's wrong with Team Magma? They'll fight Aqua, and they'll have the numbers we need."

"Yeah, well, I don't want to be associated with criminals, sorry," Gabby said, "no one had any problems with either of them when they stuck to screwing with each other, but now that they're stealing from companies and trainers, forgive us if we don't want to be held accomplice to them."

"But they can _help_ us," the Doctor replied, "she's _dying_ , is your reputation really more important to you than that pokemon's _life?_ "

"Are you going to seriously sit here and spout this moral bullshit at us while you're wearing the Magma uniform?" Ty demanded angrily, jabbing one finger at the Doctor's chest, "who the hell are _you_ to judge us?!" The Doctor's brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed, and slowly, he pushed himself to his feet, once more brushing off his knees. Truly, what Gabby and Ty had revealed about Magma was concerning. He hoped there was a good explanation for it, but even so, he was still relying on their assistance to get back to the TARDIS, and frankly, this was the best plan he had to help that poor pokemon.

"I'm the Doctor," he announced, fury beginning to seed in his voice, "I'm the Oncoming Storm. I'm a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I'm over twelve hundred years old, and _I_ am the one who is going to save that pokemon's life."

They stared at him in shock and what the Doctor could only describe as mild fear mixed with dubiousness. A sense of satisfaction and power struck him, and he offered them his most dangerous smile. _They_ asked _him_ for help. This was _his_ show, and he would make certain they were aware of the fact. He glanced slowly between the two of them.

"Any questions?"

* * *

They kicked him out. Gabby had turned her exploud on the Doctor and Trikey, and after making sure Trikey had crawled out safely, the Doctor nearly avoided Pachelbel stomping square on his shin. That entire counter could have gone over far more smoothly than it had, and it raised more questions than answers. In speaking with Team Magma the previous day, there hadn't necessarily seemed to be anything wrong; they fought off Aqua, left men to protect Captain Stern, and offered the Doctor the chance to get back to the TARDIS—sure, Maxie had asked him to perform a task, but that was only fair for help, wasn't it? And in such a different world, too. And Maxie had seemed honest about his intentions. But to elicit such a strong reaction from Gabby and Ty, to be called _criminal_ and _attacked_... the Doctor wasn't quite sure how to feel about his situation anymore.

Even so, he was still going to help that pokemon, and allying with Magma was his best plan at the moment. The Doctor was one man, and Trikey was one pokemon; the sheer number would balance everything out just a bit more, and once he was inside, he would get the medicine and return. So, first things first: the Doctor needed to find the Magma base. Once he and Trikey were safely away from Gabby and Ty's hideaway, the Doctor fished his pokenav back out of his pocket and flipped it open, returning to view the map for a good long moment. Scrutinizing his position, he turned this way and that until he was able to determine which direction the base was actually in, and with a cry of triumph, led Trikey on down a well-trodden dirt path.

"It's actually rather close," he explained as they walked, and Trikey huffed his confusion. "No, no, it's fine—it's just up the road. It should only be a few minutes, eh?" Even as they approached tall grass, the Doctor didn't lose his confidence; after all, what was the chance of stumbling across another pokemon nest? It had been an accident to cross paths with Trikey—a fortunate one, too, in the grand scheme of things—but now that the Doctor knew where he was and to be wary, he wasn't going to take any unnecessary risks. With a deep breath, he lead Trikey into the tall grass, progressing north even as he ignored the pokemon's small whines.

It seemed like he had been in the tall grass for a while, though in reality it had only been ten steps when he felt his foot strike something and as he stumbled, his eyes whipped around to find the source of the impact. What he found as he finally gained his footing was a tiny odd blue thing with large leaves sprouting from the top of it and beady red eyes set shining on its... body. Or face. Probably both. And it didn't look happy. Neither did the one that popped out next to it. Or the one after that. Or the two more that wiggled their way out of the dirt with angry little faces. Oh dear. This wasn't looking like the best situation in the whole world by any means whatsoever. The angry radishes slowly began their advance, and for a brief second, the Doctor searched for whichever way would be the best to run, but before he could, Trikey jumped in front of him and growled at the riled vegetables.

"Yes!" The Doctor suddenly agreed, "yes, of course! Trikey! Do your lightning at them!" As the walking weeds began to throw themselves at the pair of them, Trikey let out a long, ferocious howl and shook his coat, sparks flying off in all directions. The radishes, to Trikey's credit, did not seem particularly pleased by the sensation, but that appeared to be the brunt of it; they barely slowed. The Doctor could feel a frustrated groan pressing up from his throat, but before the radishes could do much else than squeak with the angry conviction of a mouse cheated out of its cheese, a sudden blast of fire from the right caught them, Trikey, and the Doctor all off-guard. The radishes burnt, the ends of their leaves blackening and curling as they caught fire, and before the Doctor really understood what happened, the stream of fire ended and the radishes all fell unmoving to the dirt.

Slowly, the Doctor's eyes followed a trail of scorched earth and smoldering grass in the direction the blast came from. Standing only a few feet away was a woman with a black bob cut and piercing eyes, with an eerie cream-colored sort of fox at her side. The Doctor's attention was drawn to its large, graceful tails fanning out in all directions, and just by gazing upon them he felt an odd sensation in his gut, the desire to run his hands through the plush fur but also somehow he felt the innate knowledge that to do so would be a dangerous decision. His eyes snapped back to the woman upon that realization, and as he suddenly noticed the clothes she was wearing—hooded, red, long and loose with hiking boots and thick red bracers, and above all, the mountainous black M emblazoned across the front—she blew a big pink bubble, bit down on it with an audible _pop!_ And started forward.

"You," she accosted him, "I know you. Tabitha wouldn't shut up about you last call. You're the man who fell from the stars."

"I'm the Doctor," he replied swiftly, "and I take it you're with Team Magma?" The woman gave him a dry look and cocked one eyebrow before popping another bubble.

"Look at you, Mr. Genius," she mocked, "what gave it away? I thought my affiliations were _so_ well-hidden. I'm Courtney. Logistics Commander. Admin. And you're basically a grunt."

"I prefer the term 'hired help.' That being said, I'm looking for some; I don't imagine you're free?" Courtney was silent again, eyeing the Doctor with mild distaste as she sized him up, then turning her attention to Trikey and the radishes.

"They told me you didn't understand the first thing about this planet." She motioned to the remains of the battlefield. "And apparently they were more right than they thought. Maxie seemed to have _some_ faith in you, but if you're stupid enough to use an electric-type against grass-types, you're more hopeless than they even thought."

"Sorry?" Her pointed gaze met his eyes again, and as she repeated herself, she slowed her voice as though talking to a child.

"Your pokemon's type," she said, " _electric_. It's even there in the name. Electrike are electric-type pokemon. Oddish are grass-type. If you don't even know basic elemental strategy, you're going to get eaten alive."

"That's all well and good, but that's not entirely one of my priorities, right now." The Doctor motioned off down the path. "I was told the Weather Institute is down this route—"

"And that Team Aqua is there," Courtney cut him off, "yeah. They're a nuisance. I was on my way to clean them out when I had to stop to save your sorry ass." The Doctor smiled a strained smile. This conversation didn't seem to really be progressing as well as it could have been.

"There's a pokemon nearby that needs medicine from the Institute's stores," he said, "so I was going for the same reason. It's fortunate that you bumped into me here—" She cut him off again.

"If you're coming along, you need to stay out of my way," Courtney said, "I'm not going to let you screw this mission up." A pause; she grimaced. "But I could use the extra manpower. They've swarmed the place, and I'm not exactly at an advantage."

"Oh?" At the Doctor's prompting, Courtney pointed to her fox, face set in grim determination.

"Ninetails," she said as though that ought to have explained everything, though when the Doctor made no attempt to agree, she rolled her eyes and gave a colossal sigh before continuing. "Rikka. She's a ninetails. _Fire_. And I'm going to kick Team _Aqua_ out of the Weather Institute. Do you see the problem?"

"Water," the Doctor said, "their pokemon are water."

" _Exactly."_ Courtney motioned again towards Trikey. "Your pooch there is electric; we've been over that already. And electric is good against water. Do you see where I'm going with this? Learn your match-ups. They're important." For a brief moment, the Doctor looked down at Trikey, and with a thoughtful frown came to the conclusion that, frankly, if he was about to help Courtney storm Team Aqua, he ought to ask how to actually _battle_ (at least, in a more informed way than he had been) but before he could, Courtney turned abruptly on her heel and in one fluid motion her ninetails turned and moved in synchronization with her. The Doctor exchanged an exasperated glance with Trikey, and the two followed after them.

Courtney didn't say a word as they began their hike, and though the Doctor abhorred the silence, he wasn't about to try and strike up another conversation. Trikey, on the other hand, would rush up to Rikka's side, snuff and bouf at her, and would find himself harshly rejected by means of a glare so intense it seemed to freeze him to the spot—the party would pass him by a good couple meters, and then he would go bounding on to try again.

Much as Gabby and Ty had told him earlier, the Weather Institute wasn't that far; a good twenty or so minutes of dedicated marching, and it was in sight. The closer they came, however, the slower Courtney's pace became until she stopped altogether to crouch in the tall grass; before she could so much as glare in his general direction, the Doctor followed suit, peering through the long stalks towards the building.

"Alright," she finally said in a hushed undertone, "there's a lot of them in there. They keep coming and going, so it's hard to say how many there are, but right now maybe fifteen, give or take a few. All grunts. A lot of them are going to have some basic bitch pokemon. Maybe a wingull, maybe lotad. Poochyena are common. What moves does your electrike know?"

"Er—" The Doctor hesitated, but instead of berating him, Courtney whipped out what the Doctor recognized to be a pokedex, but looked much older than Sapphire's had; she took Trikey's pokeball and plugged it into some prongs at one end, and a few button presses later, she beckoned the Doctor in closer to see, pointing to the text on the screen.

"These are your pokemon's attacks," she said, "your electrike knows spark, charge, howl, and tackle. It's very low-level, but as long as you work with your match-ups you'll be fine for today. It would have been nice if you were able to teach it shockwave or discharge, but I don't have any TMs on me right now, so we'll make do."

"TM?" The Doctor repeated, but she ignored him and went on.

"When we get in, have your pokemon charge, and then spark anything that flies or swims. Keep out of the way if you can, and knock out as many pokemon as possible." She ejected Trikey's pokeball and handed it back to the Doctor. "Anything else, see if you can tackle. Electrike are known for the static their coats generate; even if you're not strong enough, you can stop them in their tracks long enough to avoid a few hits. Understand?" The Doctor nodded.

"Sounds simple enough," he agreed, and Courtney turned her attention back to the Institute. For a second, she leaned in close to her ninetails, gently petting her head as she whispered to her. Eventually, Rikka bobbed her head in a nod, and suddenly the two took to their feet and shot off. The Doctor and Trikey ran after them, and soon all four were charging the front of the building. As they drew near, the automatic doors opened and a handful of trainers in the Aqua grunt uniforms leaped out meet them, their faces set in determined scowls and their pokemon charging out in front of them as they shouted orders.

"Trikey, Charge!" the Doctor shouted, and Trikey darted off ahead of them, bristling and shaking in such an odd way that tiny sparks of static shot around his coat. "Now, Spark!" A seagull-looking pokemon was swooping in for a hit, but as it drew near and as the Doctor gave the second order, Trikey barked and jumped to snap at it, the static sparks flying off his coat to shock the poor, pathetic bird that fell unceremoniously to the ground spasming. Frankly, it looked painful, and the Doctor winced, his thoughts turning back to his less-than-stellar first meeting with Trikey, but there wasn't time to reminisce on the smell of his own burning flesh and hair.

Even though the one pokemon was down for the count, there were more coming, very few ones the Doctor could recognize. Still, he took Courtney's strategy to heart, and continued to order Trikey to attack, Sparks and Tackles abound, while Courtney had Rikka pick off whatever the Doctor assumed wasn't a water type. Soon, the grunts buckled beneath their might, and while they were busy tending to all of their fainted pokemon, Courtney and the Doctor pressed on inside without missing a beat. It was far too quiet as they entered; there didn't seem to be anyone around, the hallway empty of any sort of life.

"They knew we were coming," Courtney huffed, "why else would those damn grunts have jumped us right off the bat like that?"

"They must have the researchers hostage," the Doctor added, and he could _feel_ Courtney roll her eyes, even though she wasn't even looking at him. She voiced her agreement without insulting him, though, so that ought to have been a plus.

"They think it makes them badass," she sneered, "but all it does is makes me want to punch their admins in their smug-ass mouths. Come on. This way. They'll have bunkered down in one room, easier way to cover their assess."

She lead him further through the institute, passed doors and open, empty rooms filled with computers and machines the Doctor couldn't recognize, most with their monitors still on, programs running, word processors and spreadsheets idling, and one in particular caught his eye. As Courtney continued on, the Doctor couldn't help but stop in his tracks, leaning towards the desk to scrutinize the monitor with great care.

The program it was running was updating in real time, outputting a string of numbers that seemed to relate to the wavelength and frequency of… something. But the numbers were high, incredibly high, and there was a computer-generated 3D model displayed in another window next to it. It was round, opal-shaped, and as the window seemed to belong to the same process, it was only logical that the opal-shaped model was the object being measured. Strangely, it felt significant, but the crude model wasn't enough to tell the doctor what, in fact, it was. A meteorite? Or something else? What was more, it seemed this data was being streamed from… _somewhere_.

In the few seconds the Doctor was preoccupied with the computer, he heard a door shut, and realizing that Courtney must have left him behind, he charged through the door after her to find another narrow hallway, just as empty as all the others. She really didn't wait for him, did she? But the Doctor could hear muffled voices, and so he proceeded on, throwing open the door at the far end of the hall and stepping through it.

It was a smaller room, an office, and it seemed everyone who worked in the Institute had been crammed into it, huddling in the corners. Courtney stood in front of him, her ninetails sitting rigid at her side; across from her was the computer pirate from the museum in Slateport. Amber, the name came to him a second later. And in front of Amber was a pokemon that looked like a posh bug with a glowing bum. The two had already engaged in verbal combat, from what the Doctor could tell, and they were… vicious. He didn't like some of the language they were using, and frankly, it seemed to be making Trikey uncomfortable.

"Suck a dick, Amber!" Courtney eventually snarled, "suck a big, fat dick—in fact, you know what, go suck your boss' dick, I bet that's why he even made a fucking _nerd_ like you an admin in the first place—!"

"The fuck would you know about Archie's dick?!" Amber snapped back in reply, "should I tell _your_ boss that you just _happen_ to be my boss' sloppy seconds?!"

"Oh, at least I can _get_ laid, you filthy freaking sonuva—"

"Now, hold on just a minute, both of you!" The Doctor cut in, and they whirled to face him with dirty looks on their faces and snarls on their lips. For a moment the Doctor paused, smile on his lips as his eyes darted between them, gauging their hostility, and after a lengthy silence, he spoke again. "There's no need to fight. Now, both of you, settle down."

"You're from the museum," Amber suddenly said, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. "You're with Magma?"

"Damn right he's with us," Courtney replied, and Amber was quiet again.

"Well, it's a bit more complex than that, but it's besides the point," the Doctor continued, "now, if we could just ask you to peacefully leave the Institute—" Amber snapped his fingers, and before the Doctor could finish his polite requests, the flashing bug pokemon zipped forward, crashing into first Trikey, then Rikka, the former of which yelped and yapped, while the latter snapped her jaws just inches from the bug's glowing tail as it zipped back towards Amber.

"Flamethrower!" Courtney demanded, and she hadn't even needed to ask as Rikka, so in tune with her, darted forward before the words even left her mouth. Embers sparked around her fangs before a stream of fire burst forth after them, and Amber ducked as they whizzed by just over his head; his bug darted around the fire easily, but Rikka's aim followed it and the blast left heavy scorch marks along the wall and ceiling in its wake. Within seconds, the sprinklers went off and alarm bells began ringing, and the Doctor threw himself at Courtney, grabbing her by the arm.

"Not in here!" he shouted over the noise, "you'll get someone _hurt_ that way!"

Courtney yanked her arm out of his grip, sneering. "Then what the hell do you suppose I _do?_ _Rikka!_ " Rikka leaped through the air, jaws snapping at the tail of the bug who zipped this way and that way and finally rammed into her, knocking her towards the far wall.

"Trikey, go, Tackle!" the Doctor ordered, and Trikey woofed and rushed to Rikka's aid, launching himself at the bug but falling just short. Still, the bug had to take the time to zip out of the green wolf's way, his attention stolen from Rikka, and the ninetails took her shot of opportunity to breathe another flamethrower at him, catching him full in the face. The bug fell out of the air, wings beating pathetically as he tried to regain lift, but before he could, Rikka again advanced, flames dancing from her snarling maw. Before she could do anything, however, a red beam of light made contact with the bug, and in an instant, he was returned to a pokeball. Amber, the ball in his hand, frowned.

"Alright," he admitted grudgingly, "so maybe that wasn't the best idea. But Blink kept you assholes busy long enough that I don't think it matters." It only occurred then to the Doctor that in his other hand, Amber was holding a fabric laptop case, that he'd been the one to deal with the computers before, that he had to have been here for _something_. He wondered if that something happened to be the thing the computers were running calculations on.

"If you think I'm going to just let you leave, then you've got another thing coming," Courtney growled, but Amber merely cocked an eyebrow.

"Keep me here, let me go… it's all the same to me," he replied, "Archie already has what he sent me here for. It's this brilliant new invention called _the internet_ —maybe you've heard of it?" He began walking toward them. Neither Courtney nor Rikka budged a muscle, though Trikey growled, and the Doctor scrutinized Amber's every move wearily. Soon, Amber had passed between them. "I'll see you wherever you happen to pop up next, Sis. As for _you_ , Doctor…." He paused. "You picked the wrong side, you know? Those Magma bitches are nothing but trouble." And he left. Neither of them tried to stop him.

No sooner was he out the door than Courtney rushed over to the computers to try and see what Amber had been looking at; meanwhile, the Doctor scrambled to the aid of the researchers, making sure each of them was alright and smiling brilliantly when they were all unharmed.

"Thank you," one of the said, "It feels like we've been in here for weeks, but it's only been a few days; that was _terrifying_."

"Well, that's us, then," the Doctor told her, "we're here to help! Say, Miss….?"

"Dr. Coburn," she introduced herself, and the Doctor's smile broadened as they shook hands.

"Dr. Coburn, do you know what Team Aqua was here for?" She shook her head, the loose strands of her rapidly disintegrating bun shaking around her face.

"Nothing to do with our research here," she said grimly, "we're mostly climatologists and meteorologists, after all. But we have links between our servers and the HSA's research center in Mossdeep, and as far as I can tell, they were interested in whatever it is they have over there."

The Doctor thought on that for a moment; they were after the same thing as he was. They had to be. And Amber had just left. A head-start. He needed to leave right away, make his way as quickly as he could to Mossdeep, because if he ever wanted any hope of finding his way back to the TARDIS, he had to hold up his end of the bargain and— _the pokemon_.

"Oh, yes! Oh, I almost forgot, stupid, _stupid_ Doctor! Dr. Coburn!" Her expression betrayed her mild concern over his outburst. "Just down the way, there's a pokemon with sun poisoning—the people who were tending to her said you might have an antidote!" Her expression softened, and she hurriedly beckoned him to the side. After a minute of digging through a cabinet, she withdrew and presented him with a hypodermic needle filled with a thickish green fluid.

"Hurry," she said, "we've had a few cases here before, and time is of the essence. Run as fast as you can back to her, alright?"

Running was something the Doctor was certainly no stranger to. He thanked Dr. Coburn profusely as he bolted towards the door, Trikey following right on his heels. She watched for a moment as he left, then sighed and turned her gaze to the rest of the office; it seemed like one of the other researchers had managed to get the sprinklers off, and so instead of worrying expressly about that, she headed straight towards the computers to see what damage had been done. She had taken more more than a few steps when Courtney stepped into her path, eyes cold and face still set into a deep scowl.

"Alright, doctor," she said slowly, "let's you and I have a little chat about what's going to happen, shall we? Grunts!" The doors opened again, and twenty men and women sporting red uniforms similar to hers entered the room, armed with Pokemon snarling at their sides.

It really wasn't the best day for the Weather Institute.

* * *

The Doctor ran non-stop back down the path, leaping over oddish, weird seagulls, and odd raccoon-weasels without even the faintest thought of stopping. Time flew by; it seemed much quicker getting back to the secret base Ty and Gabby had shown him earlier than it had been leaving. He didn't bother to announce himself, merely dropped to his knees and squeezed through the tunnel with Trikey still just behind him, and he ignored both Gabby and Ty when they reacted to his presence. Instead, he merely dropped to his knees by the pokemon and pushed them both side, taking only a second to judge the wilting bouquet's physique before jabbing the needle into her and pressing in the plunger.

"Oh my Groudon," Gabby said, after a beat in which both she and her partner were completely silent, "is that the _medicine_? From the Weather Institute?"

"Yes, it is," the Doctor replied evenly, "no thanks to either of you." The medicine was fast-acting; the color began to return to the pokemon's body within seconds, and her breathing evened out. The Doctor, relieved, settled back on his feet and heaved a sigh. "I got Team Magma's help. We drove Team Aqua out, and Dr. Coburn was nice enough to give it to me."

Another long silence. Minutes ticked by, and the pokemon's color grew stronger and stronger. Soon her tiny eyes cracked open, and the Doctor couldn't help but smile.

"We misjudged you, maybe. A bit," Ty said quietly. He turned to face the Doctor fully, gaze apologetic and eyes sincere. "Thank you for helping us. She would have died if it wasn't for you."

"It's working remarkably fast," the Doctor replied, "are all medicines like this?"

"All pokemon medicines, thankfully," Gabby answered, "and this roselia is especially lucky that you were here to save the day."

"Roselia? Is that what she's called?" Laughter; Gabby nodded.

"Yes, that's the kind of pokemon she is. Roselia are grass pokemon. Poison, too. They've very sweet, and when they're healthy, they smell wonderful. This one should, not too long from now. But still… we keep hearing this sun poisoning may have prolonged effects, even after it's treated," she explained, "so who knows what will happen to her." Slowly, the roselia's eyes closed again.

"Wait. You said before, the research center in Mossdeep is studying these phenomenon, right?" Gabby and Ty nodded, and the Doctor offered them his most charming smile. "I'm traveling to the research center, myself. I could take her with me—they could look her over when I get there!"

"That's a great idea!" Gabby agreed. Despite his earlier almost-apology, Ty didn't seem to be too keen on the idea, but he said nothing as Gabby offered the Doctor a pokeball to use. He declined, however, and pulled one out of his own bag, and Gabby shows him the correct way to hold it, the proper way to throw it, and which part of the pokeball needed to hit the pokemon (it turned out to be the big, obvious button on the front, but it never hurt to be sure.) Once the crash course was over, the Doctor gently pressed the button to the roselia's forehead and watched as she got sucked inside. For a moment, the pokeball wiggled in his hand—once, twice, three times—and with an audible _click_ , it locked.

And that was that. Roselia was coming with them. Gabby congratulated him, apologized for their earlier treatment of him, and for a moment she and Ty brought up the map on the Doctor's PokeNav to make sure he knew where he was going. Then, with a few quick handshakes, they said their goodbyes and parted ways, Gabby and Ty to the west to go sleep in town a while, and the Doctor and Trikey to the east towards their next stop in Lilycove, their new friend resting soundly in her pokeball. It was nice to have a new companion, and maybe, just maybe, with the remaining pokeballs in his bag, the Doctor could catch a few more along the way.

After all, the more the merrier, right?


	5. The Problem With Boats

There was a chill in the air. It was the oddest thing—Hoenn was hot and muggy, and even in the far airier clothes he'd been lent by Team Magma, the Doctor could feel the sweat causing everything to stick. From his hair plastering his forehead to his strangely soggy socks, every nerve in his body told him that he oughtn't be feeling this strange creeping cold slipping down his spine. Something was amiss. Something was very, very amiss. And of everything, the fog rolling in across the lake was eerily threatening.

"You ever been out this way, before?" As the Doctor glanced back, the fisherman who was steering the small motorboat offered him a sad smile. They had been puttering along the lake's surface for a little while, now, since the Doctor had come across the shoreline on Route 123 and realized he had no way to get across. Fortunately the fisherman going the same way had been nearby, and when the Doctor had explained his predicament, he'd been happy to bring him along. The journey had started out a lot brighter, a lot sunnier; but as they continued across the lake, the fog rolled in, the water grew darker, and everything suddenly went quiet. Only the flat sound of the boat's small motor carried across the stillness.

"No, never," the Doctor replied, "first time in the region, in fact." The fisherman nodded.

"I have to make a stop at Mt. Pyre," he said, "since it's your first time, you ought to stretch your legs and look around."

The Doctor frowned thoughtfully. He turned his eyes towards the distance, watching the outline of something large, dark, looming grow larger. Closer.

"Is that it?" he asked the fisherman, "what's so special about it?" His guide's sad smile broadened just a bit.

"It's our burial grounds for the pokemon," he explained, "they say if you go to the top of Mt. Pyre and ring the bell there, the spirits of the departed will grant you safe travels."

A burial grounds, eh? That would explain the chill. Ghosts, of course, the Doctor didn't quite believe in. In twelve hundred years of time and space, he had yet to meet a ghost that hadn't been explained by science, and he couldn't imagine ever finding one that wasn't. For now, though, it was an interesting proposition, and since they were stopping there anyways, the Doctor had to admit he was just a bit interested.

Time passed, and the looming shadow gave way to a looming island smack in the middle of the lake. The fog remained thick, but the fisherman docked with little trouble, and the two made plans to reunite on the half hour before climbing the steps into Mt. Pyre and heading their separate ways.

Carved into the rock of the mountain were enormous rooms filled with rows upon rows of tombstones, incense burning and flowers placed neatly in front of them; the walls were rough and craggy on the first few floors, but the further up the Doctor took the stairs, the smoother, more precise the cuts became, and the stiller the rooms seemed to be. Here and there he heard the sniff of a running nose, the utterances of grief, names whispered with such sacredness that they weighed so heavily on his heart. This was certainly a place of mourning.

The Doctor tried not to eye any one tombstone for too long as he made his way further and further up, the memory of losing Amy and Rory still so fresh in his mind it may as well have still been happening (well, technically it kind if was—wibbly-wobby-timey-wimey.) Soon, however, the stairs gave way to not another room carved into stone, but to the fresh, if damp, air of the foggy lake outside and moist grass. He'd reached the top.

The fog seemed so much thicker from the top of the craggy bluff than it had near the bottom, for some reason, so thick the Doctor could only see shape and mass through the swirling mist, but he pressed on. More tombstones stood erect in the tall grass, and every now and then the Doctor could have sworn he saw something just out of the corner of his eye, but whenever he turned to look, there was nothing but the wind. His stroll became cautious, his hand coming to a rest on Trikey's pokeball, but as it turned out, he needn't have bothered. The path was mostly clear, and soon the Doctor came to the top of the bluffs, finding himself faced with the bell the fisherman had spoke of. In front of the bell were two pedestals, and upon those pedestals were two orbs: to the left, an orb that shimmered with the serenity of a calm sea, and to the right, an orb that burned with the sullenness of a soothing ember. Both of the orbs emanated... _something_. Out of habit, the Doctor reached for his coat pocket to grab his sonic screwdriver, but his face fell into a disappointed scowl when all he found was fabric.

"Typical!" he berated himself under his breath, "stupid, stupid, stupid, did you forget that pirate bloke has it?" Without the sonic and without the TARDIS, it would be hard to say what these orbs were for sure, what about them both alarmed and intrigued him, but as he moved closer, there were some things he could certainly pick out on his own.

"A telepathic field," he mused quietly, "a low-level one?" Maybe not the most surprising one, after all, he had felt, faintly, Trikey's emotions through one earlier. Maybe this was common on this planet? Slowly, he reached one hand out towards the orbs, and for a second everything seemed fine. Just a moment.

Where there was gentle wind and the rustling of tall grass before, everything suddenly became still, so quiet he could have heard a pin drop, quieter and quieter, stiller and stiller, until there was nothing to hear, nothing but the rhythmic beating of his hearts, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, and as his fingertips neared the orbs his whole body tingled with static as a pressure settled in his chest and lungs, settled in the very pit of his soul while his every last hair stood on end, and right in the middle of it all the orbs swirled, brighter and darker at the same time, one churning with the rage of an ocean in a lightning storm, the other blazing with the violence of a raging volcano, and in each of them there was something _vicious_ and _terrible_ and _ancient_ -!

Suddenly, the Doctor snatched his hand away and stumbled back, gasping and sputtering at the raw energy that still licked at the charged air around him. Just as quickly as it happened, the orbs settled back to their more calming demeanor and the wind blew again, the stillness forgotten. Wide-eyed, the Doctor glanced between the orbs, unsure of what, exactly, he just experienced, but old enough and wise enough to know that neither should ever be disturbed. That was when he heard it. At first, he thought it had been his imagination, that he was just jumpy after that experience, but then it came again, the faintest of whispers through the planet's telepathic field.

 _ **Help.**_

 _ **Help me.**_

It wasn't just the words that found him, but a sadness, too. A grief powerful enough to match what clung to the tombstones of Mt. Pyre, a grief that pulled his eyes towards the east. All of a sudden, the Doctor wasn't so sure about his plan, anymore. Something was wrong.

Without ringing the bell, the Doctor silently turned on his heel and went back the way he came.

By the time the Doctor made it all the way back down, the fisherman was waiting for him just outside. His eyes were red, cheeks splotchy, but he was smiling through it, and the Doctor couldn't bring himself to say a word. He reached awkwardly to give the fisherman an understanding pat on the shoulder, and the sad smile on the fisherman's face become thankful. They boarded the small boat and set back off across the lake, sitting in mutually understanding silence for minutes as they puttered further through the fog, and when they spoke again, it was the fisherman who began.

"It happened a few years ago, and it still hurts so much," he mused, "her name was Marina. She was a dewgong; I met her when I lived in Kanto, on a fishing trip to the Seafoam Islands. You ever been there?" The Doctor shook his head. "It's a beautiful area, but sometimes trash from the mainland just sort of floats over. She was just a baby at the time, smallest seel you've ever seen, and all wrapped in a plastic bag. I got her out of it, took her home, nursed her back to health. Never was able to have kids, so she was like a daughter to me. She was with me for a long, long time."

"I'm sorry you lost her," the Doctor quietly replied, "it never does get easier, does it? No matter how long, no matter what you do, the pain always burns."

"It is what it is," the fisherman agreed, "all you can do is go on living. But you know that, huh?"

"A little too well," the Doctor agreed.

It wasn't much longer until the fog began to thin, and soon the Doctor could even spot the edge of the lake. Within minutes they were pulling up to a small, rickety dock and disembarking next to a small hill. Just up the path was a large building with a fence that seemed to stretch on forever and a sign out front reading "Safari Zone."

"Well, this is my stop," the fisherman announced. He reached out to give the Doctor a firm handshake, and then pointed to a well-trodden path to the east. "Lilycove is straight that way. You can't miss it."

"Thank you for your help," the Doctor said, the smile starting to make its way back to his face, "and perhaps we'll cross paths again, some day."

And so they parted; the fisherman disappeared into the Safari Zone building, and the Doctor set off down the path to Lilycove City. The air seemed much more welcoming here than it had at Mt. Pyre. The tall grass here rustled, too, but the sound so much sweeter. Nevertheless, he couldn't get the strange encounter with the orbs out of his head, and it weighed on him. The worst part was not knowing; the Doctor hated not knowing something, especially when that knowledge had to do with objects so... so weighted with _importance_. He should have just bitten the bullet and asked the fisherman.

Kicking himself the whole way, the Doctor continued down the path towards Lilycove. On no less than three occasions, he was stopped by people he assumed to be locals: an old man, a teenage girl, and a small boy, all of whom demanded he fight them. He had to refuse them each multiple times, eventually only managing to narrowly escape by using his roselia's fragile health as an excuse, and by the time he finally passed through Lilycove's city limits, it was already late into the afternoon.

Much like Slateport, Lilycove smelled of salt and brine, ocean air and the wetness of the surf lapping at sandy shores. Towards the far end of the city, he could spy a lighthouse, and that could mean only one thing: boats. A sigh of relief pushed passed his lips, and the Doctor's pace quickened. Trodding along a weathered cobblestone path, he beelined through the city and towards the coast, following his new beacon. Unfortunately, when the docks came into sight, it was adamantly clear there would be no boats for him to board.

The entire dock was closed off; flourescent orange saftey tape and bright yellow police tape zigzagged across and between wooden posts, and there was not a single passenger boat to be seen. Internally, the Doctor cursed his misfortune. This was quite the pickle.

"Excuse me, but the dock is closed." The voice caught the Doctor unexpectedly, and his head snapped around. A woman with blue hair pulled tight into a bun and dressed in uniform was approaching him, a small red dog-looking pokemon at her side. She didn't look particuarly upset, mostly just tired. From the spectacle of the peer, the Doctor supposed there might have been a good reason for that.

"Yes, I just saw," he answered her, "I just got into town, trying to get to Mossdeep, but..." Forlornly, he motioned to the deserted dock.

"Sorry," the woman sighed, "it's going to be a while until the ferries are up and running again. If you don't have a pokemon that can surf, you're going to be stuck here until the police finish dealing with the situation."

"Ah, you're an officer!" Well, her uniform made sense, in that case. The Doctor offered her a charming smile. "I'm sure you're busy, but could I ask you what all... _this_..." He motioned vaguely to the tapes. "...Is about?"

"There's not a whole lot to tell," the officer admitted, "a few days ago, we had a gang fight break out. Team Aqua charged the city and kicked Team Magma right out-and sunk all of our boats in the process." She shook her head disdainfully. "Used to be those guys were just strange but harmless, yet these days... well, things could be better."

Of course, she was on duty, so the officer couldn't spare much more time filling the Doctor in on the recent happenings and instead had to excuse herself. Before she left, however, she was kind enough to give him directions to the town's Pokemon center, as well as the phone number for the local police-just in case there was anything to report, she said. Otherwise, she was certain the Doctor would be able to find _someone_ at the Center who could give him a lift to Mossdeep—trainers tended to make the stop to rest before taking on the waves.

Bidding her a good day, the Doctor took the officer's advice and walked back through town, pace much slower this time. It really was a charming town, despite its current predicament. Cozy cottages lined rocky bluffs, and Main Street—the cobblestone path he had rushed down on his way to the harbor—was home to many delightful little mom-and-pop shops, and even a few restaurants. There was one little cafe in particular that caught his attention, and for a moment, the Doctor paused. He really didn't have any money, but... His stomach grumbled. It had been a while since he last ate. He could do with some tea and maybe a sandwich or something, at the very least. If only he had his sonic, he could hit up a cash point and this whole conundrum would be taken care of. Maybe he could find someone at the pokemon center to bum food off of. Or _maybe_...

The Doctor looked down to his pockets, feeling the weight of the two pokeballs there. Roselia— _Rose_ , he decided, even though it brought a lump to his throat—was still recovering from earlier, so she probably ought not battle, but Trikey on the other hand was in pretty alright shape; Gabby and Ty had fixed him up from the battle at the Weather Institute so the Doctor wouldn't have had to detour back to Mauville, and so maybe just one or two would be fine. That was how Sapphire had made her money wasn't it? The Doctor pressed on further down Main Street, and it wasn't long until he stumbled across the town square. A fountain stood in the middle, water spouting from marble sculptures in the shape of two odd, aerodynamic-looking pokemon. Even in the orange glow of twilight, trainers were all standing around it, chatting idly with each other with a few engaged in battle. For a moment, the Doctor paused to observe, to try and understand how this worked or to remember how Sapphire had approached it.

Nearest to him was a battle between a pokemon that looked like a white wolf with a sickle on its head and another pokemon that seemed to be an eagle made of metal, the two striking at each other, zipping around the square. They were nimble, attacks coming within inches of each other before one would dodge or be met with a glancing blow. They seemed strong, and the trainers—teenagers, maybe older—looked so casual about the fight as the younger kids cheered them on. The Doctor coudn't help but smile. There was something special about it all, wasn't it? The pokemon seemed focused, proud. The wolf whipped its head, sending forth a slash of harsh winds, and the eagle would gracefully twist out of the way mid-air before raking at the wolf with its claws.

The battle continued like that for a while, and the Doctor watched thoughtfully, but it was an insistent tap on his shoulder that caused him to finally become distracted and turn around. A young woman, dressed in faded blue jeans and a crop top, grinned up from just next to him.

"Hey, there," she greeted, "looking for a battle?"

"Me?" the Doctor replied, "well... yes, I suppose. People make money this way, yeah?" The woman nodded.

"Yeah," she agreed, "sometimes. What do you say, 400P on the line?

"How much is that, then? Enough to buy a meal?" For a second the woman paused and eyed him oddly as though sizing him up. For a second, her gaze lingered around his ankles, but before he could blink, it shot back up to his face. Slowly, she smiled again.

"Tell you what," she said, "let's have a friendly battle, one pokemon each. Win or lose, I'll treat you to dinner afterwards." The Doctor, touched by her kindness, agreed.

Marina-as she introduced herself only a second later-didn't seem surprised whrn the Doctor explained he was still very new to this whole pokemon trainer thing. She guided him to the other side of the fountain, then a little towards one edge of the square, where he was directed to stand at a spot where a few of the cobblestones were a pristine white, contrasting against the yellowish hue of the others. Then, she ran across to the other side and shouted for him to select his pokemon.

The Doctor reached for Trikey's pokeball and threw it, watching in satisfaction as his faithful companion emerged in a shower of red sparks. Just as he threw his pokeball, however, Marina threw hers, as well. The pokemon that materialized before Trikey was honestly quite odd. It looked kind of like a big blue beach ball, with beady black eyes, large ears, and a zig-zagging tail with a smaller blue ball on the end; actually, it was kind of cute.

"Alright, Glubs," Marina called, "tackle it!"

Before the Doctor could ask what was supposed to happen next, Glubs ran forward and lunged; Trikey tried to leap out of the way, but the strange pokemon's shoulder clipped him, and the green lightning wolf skidded as he attempted to maintain his balance.

"Trikey, Charge!" the Doctor countered, "try to stay out of reach!"

"Don't bet on that! Water Gun, Glubs, don't let him get away!"

Trikey began shuffling backwards, shaking his fur to begin generating static; Glubs did not move forward, however, but instead opened her mouth and shot a small, forceful jet of water out at him, dousing his fur so it clumped wetly at his sides. Water Gun, the Doctor ifly found himself musing-so, water _type_?

"Spark!" The order flew out of his mouth just in time; still Charged full of static, Trikey dashed forward on command, through the Water Gun, unt he was close enough to collidr with Glubs. The Sparks jumped from his coat to Glubs, shocking her, and wothin seconds she was down, body twitching from the electricity. Marina called her back, then quickly walked across the field, grin taking over her relatively subdued smile.

"Not bad!" she commented, "especially for a rookie! Your electrike has good form."

"Thank you," the Doctor replied with a smile of his own overtaking his face, "your-what was it?"

"Glubs is a marill."

"Your marill, then, she's quite good, too."

"Thanks!" Beaming, Marina shook his hand, then motioned to Trikey. "Why don't you put him away? Just like I promised, I'll treat you to something tasty."

The Doctor obliged her, returning Trikey to his pokeball, and then the two set off on their way. Marina led him down Main Street-they passed the cafe he had been eying earlier-then turned down a side street. The Doctor, of course, didn't fuss; food was food, after all, and if he really wanted to try the cafe he could always go back to the Trainer Square and battle for money again later. Maybe it wasn't such a bad way to earn a living, after all; the thrill was still dancing in his veins, the rush of the fight... It was a little like sport.

They turned down another side street, then another; a little while later, they cut through an alley. About half-way down, the Doctor began to contemplate maybe asking where, exactly they were going, but he was unfortunately never able to. The last thing he remembered was being grabbdd from behind, a cloth with a strong chemicam smell held over his mouth and nose, and then minutes of struggling later, the world finally went dark.

When the Doctor next came to, it was with a jolt. For a second, he blinked bleariness from his eyes, tried to place where he was and what had happened. and it took a moment before the memories came flooding back. He could feel white-hot anger boiling inside of him, rage pointed in his mind-then worry. Was Marina alright? Had they gotten her, as well? Frantically, The Doctor reached for hia pokeballs; in his pocket, like they ought have been. That was good. One mystery solved, and now another: where was he?

Frankly, the room he had woken in was relatively nondescript, save for a small stainless steel desk and two matching chairs-one of which he was already sitting in, apparently. He was in the middle of trying to piece it all out when the door opened, and to his relief, Marina walked in.

"Oh, thank god, you're okay," he said, "did you get a look at their face? Who were...?" But the words died in his throat. Something was wrong. Marina wasn't wearing her clothes from earlier. For a second the Doctor stared, wondering how ling he must havr been out, but then it hit him. What she was wearing, it looked like a Team Aqua uniform. Like what Amber gad been wearing.

"Ah," he continued after a long pause, "of course you're okay. You orchestrated this whole thing."

"Amber said you were smart," she replied, "Aqua Admin Shelly, at your service." The kind smile from earlier was replaced with a self-satisfied smirk. Marina-Shelly-took the seat across from him and kicked back, resting her feet on the desk. "Heard you've been sniffing around. Trying to get to Mossdeep, right? That's why I brought you here, to offer you a lift."

"You know," the Doctor dryly replied, "I'm sure there were easier ways to offer me aome help. You seemed to have a grasp of it when you were offering me dinner."

"Chances are, you wouldn't have stopped to listen to me if I had just offered," Shelly pointed out, "and besides, this is a _buisiness deal._ Nothing for nothing and all that, you know? So I needed to bring you to our base, anyways." The Doctor sighed heavily.

"Alright, I'll bite. What is it you want?"

"I want your map data."

Silence.

"Pardon me, _what?_ "

"From your Pokenav. I want your map data. If you give me your map data, I'll take you to Mossdeep, myself-and I feel like I should mention, we have the entire coast here on lock-down. Not a whole lot ofother options."

Again, silence. The Doctor sat-well, not quite stunned, but mildly surprised by the sheer audacity of it all. Kidnapping him, then offering help and expecting him to take it! And to give ger his map data, no less! Team Magma's bases, that must have been what she was after. He needed to keep Maxie's trust if he was going to use the mab to get to the TARDIS. But then, Maxie helping him get to the TARDIS, that hinged on the Doctor getting to Mossdeep, and he had seen the harbor, himself. Team Aqua didn't seem to really a playful matter. He supposed he could go back to the pokemon center, try to find help there anyways, but... well, time was of the essence. And here was an offer, right in front of him.

Wad that really so bad?

The more the Doctor thought about it, the better the deal seemed to look. If he was very quick in Mossdeep... if he could just make ot there and back before Aqua could pull anything, then explain the situation to Maxie... Slowly, the Doctor raised his gaze to once more look Shelly in the eye.

"Alright," he said, "you have a deal."

The nasty way Shelly's smirk twisted upwards made him wonder if it was really worth it.


End file.
